My Almost
by confuzed
Summary: Draco is unexpectedly stuck in Hermione's presence for a while after the war. Many things have changed and they find with their sudden companionship comes an almost friendship, which is unnerving because of what their almost relationship could turn into.
1. Existence

Disclaimer: I own nothing regarding Harry Potter or any of the other works of art mentioned in this chapter and hereon.

A/N: This idea has been stewing for a bit and I decided that even if the updates are sporatic someone out there might like to read them and I should not prevent that =]

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Draco Malfoy was seated in an odd muggle contraption, it was made of a very hard plastic, quite uncomfortable, and it appeared to be a chair with a desk top attached, although it was not an entire desk, hardly enough for one person to take notes on.

There were several round metal bars connecting the chair and the desk, even one metal bar on the right side ensuring that the occupant had to slide into the seat from the left side; underneath the chair there was a small metal basket for which school books could be placed. The chair part was a deep blue color and the desk top was a pale beige.

All in all it was a very standard school desk, but Draco Malfoy had never encountered such a desk, he had mixed feelings about it, it did look impossibly sturdy, but still, what if it did more than a chair was necessarily entitled to do...what he did not know, hence his discomfort. Adding to the mixture was the multitude of muggle students nonchalantly occupying the other twenty some odd desks in the medium sized class room, okay, so perhaps multitude was a bit of an exaggeration. The point is that he was greatly outnumbered and acutely aware of it.

Many were quietly chatting with their neighbor, some were reading, others were eating some in between class snacks, and a select few were sitting silently. Despite the neutral environment of the room Malfoy was nervous. His skin was crawling in the muggle clothes we was wearing; a simple black button down collared shirt and a part of regular jeans.

Essentially muggle clothes did not differ too greatly from wizarding garb, after all wizards and humans share the majority of physical attributes so it only makes sense that their clothes are similar. Perhaps the major grievance he was facing was the quality of cloth; jeans were rather coarse and his shirt was a far cry from the silk he was used to wearing. That and his robe. He was explicitly told that under no circumstances was he allowed to wander around in a robe; muggles did not approve of such garb, which he felt was a little prejudiced but considering his life a whole he never had the right to complain about people being prejudiced towards him. He never considered that he was more upset by the fact that his new status in the world was middle class at best, resulting in middle class accommodations.

A short gwaff was heard somewhere near the front of the classroom as a beefy man rolled his eyes at whatever his smaller feminine counterpart was saying. It was a normal occurance; witches always said ridiculous things, but he was still unaccustomed to the stark similarities between muggles and wizards.

Up to this point in his life he had never once been fully submerged in such a purely muggle situation, it is no wonder he was unsure of himself, there were not even mudbloods around, at least they _knew_ he was a powerful wizard, but these muggles around him did not seem to care who or what he was. It was an odd experience to be 'uninteresting' to the general public, but perhaps Draco just didn't know the feeling of blending in.

All through school, Voldemort's second rise, and then his fathers subsequent rise to power and madness Draco always had attention directed at him, be it envious or hated. A small part of him, his ego we presume, missed that attention. But unless he felt like stupidly drawing their simple and moronic muggle attention to him in what would probably be considered a rude and unseemly manner he would just have to deal with their ignorance. He truly did not feel like making any _more _enemies, and though he doubted their puny muggle powers posed any threat to him, he did not feel like causing problems at the moment.

That, and how he performed in the muggle submersion program these next few 'semesters' would literally decide if he were to be subjected to Azkaban or cleared of his crimes against the wizarding world.

His icy gray eyes subconsciously drifted over the other occupants of the classroom as his thoughts carried him far away. A small frown pulling his pale pink lips down, almost imperceptibly so.

Voldemort had been killed in what was thought to be the final battle that had taken place his seventh year at Hogwarts by Harry Potter. The death eaters somehow terribly underestimated the inhabitants of Hogwarts and indeed the school itself, they were not even close to winning. The only reason the other side had _any_ casualty was because one curse from a death eater spelled death. They were instructed before the attack that they were to only use spells that caused irreversible death; the cruciatus curse did not result in death and was thus forbid, as were many other dark curses.

Had the other side not been the chivalrous hero's and good doers of the bunch, had even half of them stooped so low as to use a killing curse, the battle would have lasted less than an hour. As it were things were much longer and bloodier. The 'light' side kept to their morals and, quite honestly, suffered needlessly for it. But whatever helps you sleep at night, right?

When it was blatantly obvious there would be no victory for the dark side, ie: when scar head killed Voldemort, the death eaters all fled. Leaving behind a bloody school ground and a group of elated and distraught victors.

But the war was not so easily decided by one battle, and after their leader's death, Lucius Malfoy stood up and banded together the remnants of the death eaters and they continued on their not so merry way. His father's reign never was quite as magnificent or far reaching as Voldemort's, but the insanity and cruelty were still a key element in their credo as they relentlessly carried on their path of 'righteous' destruction.

It was not until around his twenty-third birthday that the death eaters had officially lost when their headquarters were raided by Aurors. There were many moments of confusion and some accidental friendly fire on the death eaters side; they apparently did not handle surprises well. Hind sight is twenty/twenty.

The majority of death eaters that died in the raid were of his fathers generation, Draco and the rest of his generation 'peacefully' surrendered, ready for their involvement in their parents war to end. Somewhere along the dreary way, probably after endless days and hours of torture endured from older death eaters, did their children realize that this was not the ideal life, and that here in the death eater camp they were treated but a little better than their prisoners. Granted it did not make any of them mudblood supporters, it simply made Draco and some of his peers stumble across the idea that perhaps this was not the preferred manner of life's daily operations.

After the war ended and the mudblood lovers, excuse me, muggle born supporters, triumphed Draco knew he stood little chance of denying his involvement with the death eaters considering whose son he was. It took a year before the courts got around to processing his case, they were more concerned with debilitating those survivors of his fathers generation and ideals, and smartly he denied nothing but promoted the fact that many of his actions were performed under duress. The common knowledge that Lucius Malfoy had killed his wife when she defied him only strengthened the courts belief that Draco Malfoy was forcefully threatened to support the death eaters regardless of his personal beliefs.

Many of his once fellow school peers were highly outraged at the ruling; as blinded by their prejudiced as he had been his whole life, but the courts did nothing to ease their qualms. Simply because he was the son of the man who ran the whole deal did not mean he was as big a driving force as his father had been, they said.

So in the spirit of being duly fair the court offered him an ultimatum, enter the 'muggle immersion' program and prove that he could willfully and easily coexist with muggles and muggle born witches long enough to attain a muggle degree from a university, anywhere from two to five years depending on the degree and crimes committed, and be cleared of all charges, or serve one month in Azkaban for every charge brought against him.

When the total number of charges surpassed fifteen Draco had already made his mind up. It was rumored that six months in Azkaban would have a prisoners grasp on reality slipping, a year would result in total insanity, so it was best not to risk it.

He would rather wallow around in non-magical filth for a couple of years in exchange for his sanity, it seemed a fair trade. There were many down sides to the ultimatum, the biggest being the loss of his wand. It possibly bordered on cruel to take a pure blooded wizard's wand away from him in any situation, especially for such an extended amount of time, but the ministry was not willing to risk the lives of innocent muggles if the wizard did indeed turnout to be like their predecessors.

And so sat Draco Malfoy in a muggle classroom, clothed in muggle garb, wandless, and very much apprehensive of the next four years of his life, his degree of choice being Literature. It suited his sentencing terms and it was a solitary action, reading. Truthfully he felt that despite it being muggle literature it would be much easier to drop off into fictional worlds than deal with his all too real crumbling and decaying one.

The ministry provided him with room and board and a small stipend to get by with. But other than that he was on his own in the wide, wide world of muggles. It all seemed very generous but upon closer inspection he could feel the magical wards on his small loft and even on his money; they would know when he was home and what he spent his money on. He would even hazard to say there was a tracking spell on him, they would be stupid not to.

The ministry told him that there would be someone watching him and monitoring his activities on top of the wards, but he was not informed of how often, how closely, and if they would or even could interact with him. One officer of the ministry hinted that he would have some resources available to make his adaptation smoother but it was quickly glossed over and not mentioned again.

The door to the classroom snapped open instantly focusing his mind to the present as a young professor, around the age of 25 walked in. She had curly brown hair that was pulled into a high pony tail and a pair of reading glasses on her small nose. She was smartly dressed in a lilac blouse and a black pencil skirt, her pantyhose encased legs led down to feet enclosed in black high heels, she had a no nonsense vibe about her.

The majority students in the room seemed unfazed by her, most had her before and knew that despite her age she was wickedly smart teacher that required only the best from her students. She was also the only teacher for several of the classes required for a degree in Literature so it was best not to piss her off because they would be seeing her again.

A few freshman seemed a little apprehensive at having such a young teacher but only one blonde haired student in the class seemed to be having a major issue with the teacher, but it was for reasons purely nonacademic. Poor Draco Malfoy was close to having a heart attack as his brain tried to process this new development. The only indication of his inner turmoil was his eyes widening a fraction and his lips setting in a firm line.

"Good morning class, I am Hermione Granger. You may call me a variety of names but they must be politically correct when in the classroom, off campus I truly do not care" Her voice was crisp and confident, it was voice he had not heard in seven years. This got a chuckle out of some of her repeat students and the few who were new simply gaped at her, Draco was unsure if her voice was comforting or intimidating because of its familiarity.

"I see we have a few new students joining us this semester," her dark brown eyes zeroed in on Draco first and then slowly fixed on the other new students, the pleasant, professional smile never leaving her youthful face, "I am advising you now to make friends with those who have had me before, this class will not be easy by any means and while those who have had me before do not know exactly what to expect they will have some basic knowledge on how I and the class operate."

She paced back and forth as she spoke to the class, her high heels clicking audibly and her pony tail swaying in rhythm. "I will tell you a little about myself, for formalities sake, and then we can get this semester under way."

"I have a bachelors and masters degree in Literature with a heavy emphasis on language and composition, I received my bachelors at the age of 20 and my masters at 22, both from the Oxford University, and directly after that I was given a job here, replacing my mentor after his retirement, this is the beginning of my third year of teaching."

This information was dispersed in an informative manner. No trace of gloating or ego could be found in her voice. They were simply facts of life, facts of Hermione's life, and facts of the school's action.

"That being said, a good chunk of you should have already taken this class," she said shooting a look to a cluster of older looking students, who had the good sense to look sheepish "the rest of you probably should have waited another semester. This is an advanced language and composition class, APLC, for short and generally taken your _sophomore_ year. But I can only tell a select few of you what classes you should take and when." She received a few smiles from students Draco assumed she advised. He briefly wondered if she would have to be his adviser as well before focusing on what she was saying.

Her pacing had stopped and she turned to face the class. "Your first assignment is to justify your existence, it must at least be two pages long. Since this is the first assignment I will be kind about the grammar issues, this is more focused on the thesis anyway. There are a few rules however."

"You cannot justify your existence on the existence of others, religions, or philosophies. Neither your significant other nor your god and or philosophies are plausible reasons to exist. And politics are so convoluted and corrupt I pray you not base your existence off of them, if you insist upon it I will have to excuse you from this class." She said smiling and not at all like she had just turned this already hard assignment into a down right difficult one.

Ignoring the slightly baffled looks of her students she continued.

"Other than that I do not care if your reason to exist is to skinny dip in every major body of water in the world, or to taste every type of chocolate available in Britain. The purpose of this assignment is to kick start your brain into thinking abstractly and writing linearly, it will be painful and frustrating but so is life, and everyone here seems to cope okay with that." a brief flicker of her gaze was directed at Draco, sending a shiver down his spine. Oh, the implications.

"This assignment is due one week from now. You must score an eighty percent in order to justify your existence. Are there any questions?" She ended with a kind smile, an expectant gleam in her eyes as though she was greatly looking forward to grading the assignment.

A small pale hand from some black haired girl in the middle row shot up with remarkable speed, irrationally the scene before him flickered back to an eleven year old Hermione doing the same thing all those years ago.

Hermione nodded in acknowledgment "What does this have to do with language and composition?" she all but squeaked, quickly pulling her hand back down. The squeak broke the illusion of parallel times as they merged back into the present, never in his entire life had he heard the Gryffindor squeak, shriek in anger, yes, squeak in fear, no.

A happy smile crossed their teacher's face, she apparently loved explaining things, although that wasn't remotely new. But the fact that somethings never do change brought a small twitch that his version of a smile to Draco's face, which promptly fell into a frown when her chocolate brown eyes fixed on him while she answered the girls question. "This class is to help students master language and composition, we will focus on the two parts separately and then hopefully after we have a good grasp on both we will combine them and create masterpieces. The first section will focus on composition and it will be explored through creating several essays, this is the first essay."

"This particular prompt was selected because a major part of essays and compositions deal with logic and rhetoric. Justifying your existence solely with your own devices is one of those prompts that will force you to think. After all, how many twenty-somethings out there in the world really know why they continue to exist and live life? Even though writing is a solitary action it has many positive externalities, ranging from self confidence in your abilities to providing a way to deal with stress and challenging questions in life, but you can do none of those things unless you know how to think for yourself and reach your own conclusions confidently."

Her eyes slowly slid from Draco's face back to a neutral spot in the class. Well at least he knew why the ministry employed this program, it was a roundabout way to deprogram his upbringing and that of other pure bloods.

"Once you can confidently create and support your own conclusions the only thing you have to do is express them correctly through language. The two subjects over lap frequently but they are individually and equally important to a successful work of art." There was a clinical, logical approach to her answers but the way she spoke and moved made it appear less so and more indulgent. Hermione Granger was a living version of language and composition. Rhetoric and logic seeping from her very existence. Draco was pulled from his musings by her clear voice.

"Any other questions?" She asked the class with a gentle smile. After silence held for a couple seconds she dismissed her students instructing them to pick up a syllabus on the way out and use whatever time they had left to brainstorm their existence.

Draco had gathered what few belongings he had; a notebook, some pens, and his schedule, and was slowly making his way towards the door while the rest of his classmates filed out. "Mr. Malfoy, may I speak to you for a second?" a voice called from a few feet away.

His stomach did an unhealthy flip as he turned to face a person he had tortured for years and fought against every step of the way.

He had actually liked the class thus far, it was a no-brainer that Granger would make a great teacher, he was just hoping to avoid any personal contact with people and remnants of his past, for some rather obvious reasons.

As the last of his new peers left the class room, the door swinging shut audibly, he came to stand stiffly in front of Hermione Granger, his icy eyes focused on a black mark on the floor, her high heels only visible in his peripheral. They were black closed toe shoes with about a three inch heel and a small strap across the ankle; overall they were quite tasteful, which is something he never thought Granger would have.

His face was impassive and possibly bored looking as he stared at the offending floor, any other person would have appeared nervous. Draco Malfoy, never truly appearing as he felt, gave off more of a defiant air. A smile touched Hermione's lips as she surveyed her former classmate and enemy, only Malfoy could pull off such a contrasting composition of feelings and physical expression.

Although they did not aid much when she knew him well enough to see right through his act. They had spent seven years getting to know the uglier sides of their own personalities and the other's. It could be argued that such a hateful relationship leads to more knowledge of the other than a peaceful one would have.

A light pressure on his arm had his eyes shooting towards the cause, a small white hand with delicate fingers were resting on his arm, he followed the offending appendage up to the body and then the face it belonged to. Hermione Granger was touching him, kindly, with an understanding look in her dark brown eyes and a small pout on her glossed lips. It was the first physical contact he had had in several years.

His eyes must have given away his current panic mode, Granger would never touch him willingly, perhaps this was Azkaban after all and he was hallucinating, although he hadn't the faintest idea as to why he would hallucinate about the mudblood. "Mr. Malfoy, many things have changed since we last saw each other." She said calmly removing her hand from his arm, eyes still compassionate but voice guarded. She was not expecting Draco Malfoy to be kind in return, it was simply not how the world worked.

He just gave her a calculating look, a small scowl on his face, but his silence allowed her to continue. " I haven't stepped foot in the wizarding world since that day in our seventh year, I only have second hand knowledge of what transpired over the last couple years. It is a bit of a coincident that you were placed in this class but only a small one. I was a teacher here before the ministry approached me with the program and requested my compliance, I agreed mostly because I felt that the chances of having any one from the wizarding world choose a Literature degree were slim to none. The idea of a death eater being interested in muggle books was a little beyond my powers of imagination." Although it seemed as though the information was personal her delivery was clinical, it appeared Granger had lost some of her emotional qualities.

"And the others?" He asked with a sharp tone, but all she did was look at him confused, "The other programs available. It seems improbable that all the courses offered in the recompense are taught by those familiar with the wizarding world and what happened therein." He clarified his tone a bit softer, bordering on polite, but still nowhere close.

A look of comprehension dawned on her young face. "You are actually quite lucky Mr. Malfoy, all the other courses are taught by muggle professors, and those wizards and witches enrolled in the programs are tracked and assisted by aurors from the ministry. For obvious reasons the ministry felt that I would be qualified to track and protect all parties involved without the aid of an auror." The entire time her voice was polite and encouraging, but it never strayed from her teaching voice. She was not emotionally invested in the conversation, he thought mildly. It was an interesting change not to be yelled at by the rash Gryffindor.

This rather odd and understanding version of Hermione was one he never really wished to encounter, it made her too much like a real person, and not just a mudblood. But then again perhaps his views on mudbloods had imperceptibly changed after watching his father literally ascend into madness in his fight against impurity. He had honestly not sat down and thought about it. Survival mode is not conducive to deep pondering thoughts.

"I can see you are uncomfortable, so I will make this quick. Here are your books for this class and your others, I have a copy of your schedule and your apartment key. In theory I am supposed to check on you regularly this first semester but I honestly do not feel like it so, if it is okay with you, we will meet once a week after class for an hour and talk about everything. Sound okay?" She said all of this as she literally summonsed her wand out of thin air and then summoned his books. He paid more attention to her actions than her words.

"I thought you said you left the wizarding world behind Granger." He said accusingly, the sight of Hermione Granger with a wand was still something to be alarmed about in his mind.

A Cheshire smile twisted her lips up in a rather attractive, rather Slytherin, way as she replied "Mr. Malfoy, I justify my existence through the pursuit of knowledge, I have turned my back on a society, not its knowledge, all forms of knowledge should be revered." Had he not known the mudblood for years he would have thought she almost sounded and looked like a scheming cat.

"Even dark arts?" He snidely replied before remembering that the fate of his future literally depended on how well Hermione Granger thought he adjusted to the muggle world. It appeared she still had the effect of making him say things he'd rather not, ah chemistry, volatile chemistry.

Her eyes darkened a little and the smile disappeared as she told him seriously "Knowledge is a neutral object, it is the wielder who decides if it will be put to good or evil means. I would have thought that _you_ of all people knew that." Her voice was level and her words unrushed, a few more moments of direct eye contact and she blinked and shook her head as if to clear her thoughts.

"You are dismissed, Mr. Malfoy. Do try not to be late to your next class." Her voice was back to the professional professor and her face was impassively polite. Malfoy gave a sharp nod before gathering his things and leaving the classroom in a flourish, his robe would be billowing had he been allowed to wear one.

As they parted ways the resounding thought of "well that wasn't too bad" floated through their minds.

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"The very purpose of existence is to reconcile the glowing opinion we hold of ourselves with the appalling things that other people think about us."- Quentin Crisp, English Author, 1908-1999


	2. Mystery in Revolt

Disclaimer: I do not own anything mildly related to Harry Potter, nor anything by the fantastic Albert Camus (whoever has not read him absolutely MUST! It is quintessential for inquiring minds).

A/N: I believe my fanfiction hit tracker is broken, I have gotten three reviews and 0 hits and 0 visitors, which is statistically impossible...so if you do not mind, and if you have the time, would you drop a review so that I know it is being read. I was very discouraged by the zeros.

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It was a few days after the first of the semester, students were beginning to fall into their productively stressful routines. The fall semester was officially underway; which some considered a shame due to the pretty summer weather that had stuck around. But not all students were interested in the weather.

A lithe figure with pale skin and soft hair sat in a well used reading chair in a dimly lit corner of his small apartment. The fact that all of his furnishings were second hand and all of his clothes were new but cheap did not seem to bother his subconscious in private as it did in public. He had no intention of entertaining guests in such a menial place, so what did it matter if his furniture was not a pristine antique worth more than most college educations? It would appear that Draco's standard of life was significantly more relaxed than his upbringing, something he did note to himself but was uninterested in pondering the implications.

He was more interested in the well read and loved paperback book he was holding with his pale hands. _'The Rebel'_, by Albert Camus, was a distinctly well written and intelligent prose over metaphysical and historical rebellion, rebellion and art, and rebellion and murder. It was completely muggle, but it crossed over the discriminating titles of muggle and wizard, black and white, nationalists and foreigners, and was easily applicable to every human being on earth. Not that he had ever truly and purposely thought that muggles were people, a habit of his upbringing, but it would appear that all discriminating titles used to distinguish one group of people from another did nothing to deter the fact that they all were titled homo sapien sapiens scientifically.

His science class, a prerequisite and a general education credit, was one of the most fascinating things he had ever encountered. The more he wandered around the muggle world the more he was convinced that they _must_ have some sort of magic to create the things that they did, many inventions, while sometimes not as advanced as magic and sometimes more advanced, were simply mind boggling.

At first he thought of laughing aloud when he learned that there were things called 'DNA' and 'RNA' that decided his physical and mental attributes, surely his mother and father were responsible for that. But upon further perusal of the subject and its intricacies and its relation to blood; the thing his whole life was based upon, he found himself slowly amazed that muggles had discovered how their bodies worked. He was not one hundred percent sure that his worked _exactly_ the same way, he produced magic so there must be some deviation from non-magical bodies, but he was unsure what the deviation would be; they both had blue blood that bled red.

Perhaps when they met, he would ask Granger. She seemed to know it all.

Speaking of Granger, he was unsure whether he was grateful for her effort or annoyed at her assumption that he would need help adjusting to the domestic life of muggles. Among his books for other classes she had left an extensive 'guide' to muggle living, hand written in loopy cursive and purple ink; from how to grocery shop, to cooking, to preserving his food, and in depth instructions on how to work muggle contraptions like computers, refrigerators, ovens, coffee pots, and showers. Not that he couldn't, after some assuredly frustrating attempts, figure it out himself. For items like showers he was annoyed that she found him so simple minded, but for more complex items like computers and ovens he felt a small stab of gratitude for her foresight.

But the thing he was most grateful about was a small stack of books he found on his kitchen counter with a small note attached explaining that they were a house warming gift and well worth the read if he felt like doing some introspection. He felt torn between satisfaction and disconcert when he realized that they were Granger's personal books. His pride preened beneath the knowledge that he was important enough for her precious books, his conscious worried over the implications of this newly found importance.

All she had to do was watch over him and make sure he could and would live peacefully and productively with muggles, nothing about the situation deemed her personal interest as a necessity. Donating books that seemed entirely revealing about her person caused his stomach to sit uneasily. Surely she knew that these books and their thoughts could be used as ammo against her, things to ridicule her with, or at the very least tease her with.

It was not until he actually began reading '_The Rebel_' that he found the books, at least this one, would not be able to be used to ridicule her. It all made sense in a dark philosophical way. He was surprised to find that _all_ of her donated books were from foreign authors, not one Brit among them. He was even more intrigued by the idea that they all seemed to touch on the subject of existentialism and rebellion.

At first he scoffed because she had recently said philosophies were not a valid reason to exist, and then she turns around and gives a stack of books almost purely philosophical; However, the more he read, both the written works and her notes on the side, he realized that existentialism could not truly be called a philosophy.

"_Existentialism is not a philosophy but a label for several widely different revolts against traditional philosophy...Certainly, existentialism is not a school of thought nor reducible to any set of tenets...it becomes plain that one essential feature shared by all existential writers is their preferred individualism."_

"_The refusal to belong to any school of thought, the repudiation of the adequacy of any body of beliefs whatever, and especially of systems, and a marked dissatisfaction with the traditional philosophy as superficial, academic, and remote from life—that is the heart of existentialism."_

The fact that all of the great writers of existentialism, with the exception of one or two, vehemently denied being existentialists greatly amused him. The idea that Dostoyevsky, a man of many existential works, was a Christian duly noted as anti-semetic, anti-catholic, and anti-western Russian nationalist did nothing to abate his amusement.

The fact that the idea of a non-philosophy was created out of authors deeply devoted to other philosophies and religions and then denied by their creators struck a cord somewhere in Draco. He was not sure what it meant exactly, but he felt it meant to be important someday.

It was not until he read _"What is a rebel? A man who says 'no', but whose refusal does not imply a renunciation."_ that Draco knew what he was going to base his existence off of. He was conscious of the fact that Granger had practically defined a viable reason for his existence and aptly provided tools for him to stumble upon the reason on his own. But he did not care.

Draco Malfoy was excited about expounding on the reason for his existence in his own words, creating his own support, and defining himself as an individual instead of a pure blood. After all, Granger only provided the notion, he could have rejected it if he felt it incongruous with his personality. For a wild moment he was stricken by the idea that Granger knew him better than he thought. True, she did not know the majority of his habits and reactions because she had not been around for years, but is not knowing a persons reason to exist, to live, to do anything at all a bit more telling than all of his idiosyncrasies?

He would even hazard to say that once a reason for existing is defined a persons idiosyncrasies serve as support for the reason and not the other way around. If he had money to spare he would bet that Granger had at least one degree in psychology, but due to his situation, he had no money to spare.

A part of him felt like rebelling against her notion, but that would just support her notion all the more. Shaking his head with a sarcastic smile he consented that the girl was brilliant, not that he was ever going to tell her. He was positive she already knew, and surely she did not need his conformation.

Besides the idea of complimenting _her_ left a bitter taste in his mouth, must be from habit.

With an excited light in his silver gray eyes he set about finding a muggle pen and notebook. He had no doubt in his grammar skill, that had literally been beaten into him since birth. He took pride in the pedicure of his upbringing, it was in no way the easiest, but he was very knowledgeable in many subjects. Not so much in anything muggle, but the universal subjects such as reading, writing, and arithmetic were his to control.

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"An essay on one man in revolt"

Inspired by: Albert Camus

Written By: Draco Malfoy.

Many times in a persons existence there appears a lack of curiosity, their lives devoid of the yearning for knowledge, a compilation of complacent actions and thoughts. Perhaps it could be considered human nature, but that would ring untrue upon detailed inspection. It is true that masses of society follow certain leaders, ideas, and laws, for the most part, without question. However, there are certain individuals who find it within themselves unable to be led about as a flock, they may acquiesce that the beaten path is somewhat acceptable and somewhat effective only in the notion that the end result is already known. But if life is only going to result in the same thing time and again for the masses, perhaps death would be a more appropriate adventure, at least something new and beneficial would be gained through that experience. Life is meant to be lively, adventurous, and mostly dangerous. Society, it would seem, strives to make peace, despite its many failures of war. The reason that I live is not to be peaceful, complacent, or agreeable, truly I do not think I could be if I tried. I exist for the sole experience of the revolt, a revolt against all that I find unacceptable, both within myself and outside of myself.

This revolt, the reason for existence, stems from a need to be constantly improving. I could, perhaps on occasion, be titled as a perfectionist; but such a thing does not exist, nor will it ever. My upbringing, while somewhat controversial, has taught me many things about life and the way people interact with each other. One glaring lesson I have learned time and again is that whatever you have accomplished, it is not enough. It never will be enough, and it is your duty to acknowledge that fact of life. You can try to improve constantly, and it will surely result in a reason to exist that spans till your death, but that is not my sole reason for existing. I pride myself in being right, as close to perfect as I can get; as such I must employ logical thinking daily. If I can be methodical and logical there is a greater assurance that I will be right.

This being established it must be stated that many things in society and personalities are not logical. These are the things I am in revolt against. I am not out to start a revolution, public or personal. A revolution is essentially claiming that the way of life has thus been unacceptable in _every_ way and _must_ be demolished, preferably in the most violent way possible—I have no intentions of staging such a thing. I am rebelling, which essentially means "up to this point yes, beyond it no". A simple example could be academics, while myself or another is putting forth their effort to learn, improve, and achieve I am in agreement; it is up to that point I find nothing amiss. It is when the pupil becomes complacent, achieving less than their potential that I must find myself protesting. No, this is not acceptable. It is owed to yourself to do the most that you can. There are few acceptable reasons for underachieving.

I am in revolt against my upbringing as well. The rules of life I was governed under demanded perfect, in every way, shape, form, vowel, and concenant, I find this logically impossible and I _must_ protest against it. The justification of my existence is not to condemn those who fail to achieve perfection because perfection is unachievable, I find myself justified in protesting the demand for perfection, I am here to commend improvement and achievements, not be unduly cruel for falling to the inevitable.

I am also in revolt against myself. For many years I was led about as a stupid sheep, obeying the flock, certain ideologies. After walking off many cliffs because I was unable to think for myself I _finally_ fell hard enough to knock some sense into my empty head. I must say it was a difficult transition to sift through the hazy, disorienting demands of dictatorship to discover that I was but a pawn of little consequence, as we all are to society. The horror at this realization sparked the revolt within, subconsciously it grew and strengthened itself, biding its time until I had developed enough good sense to attempt thinking for myself.

I know first hand how dangerous it is to blindly follow those who are too willing to lead, it is with a steadfast purpose of leading myself that I set out every day. Mistakes and disasters with befall me, but they will be because of me and my actions. I am mentally at peace with this outcome, it distresses me when mistakes and disasters prey upon me from the actions of others, I do not feel they are justifiably my penance to pay. Society's mediocrity will have no control over me, nor will the other powers that be.

I, Draco Malfoy, am justified through my rebellion. If I receive protests and opposition it will simply be viewed as being successful. Free thinkers and those who do not play by the rules because they find fault with the rules are threats to those who have power and vast reigns of control over the dull minded. I will be among the ranks of these free thinkers, all of us individuals who have not in common but our rebellion, our individual voices declaring "there is a limit beyond which you shall not go." Logic, critical thinking, and knowledge will be the weapons of my revolt. With these I will conquer those who ignore my limitations, I am my own person and as such I have given no man the right to control my thoughts, actions, and reasons. Though my revolt may not lead to a long life, it will lead to one I am proud to have earned. Should my revolt end in death, as I hope it does, death will be but another adventure to decipher.

* * *

Draco sat back and look at his essay with unease in his eyes, pen poised over the paper, unsure of what to do next. Perhaps it was a worthless essay, he felt, despite believing every word, that it sounded unemotional and fake. Granger would think that he was being his regular cunning self by penning such lies to 'impress' her and ultimately influence her decision on him.

A frown creased his face as he wondered aloud "What if it is all lies? What if I really am just doing this to get my way?"

Sitting back with a puzzled look on his handsome face he absent absentmindedly chewed on the bottom of his pen. What if he was just caught up in the books? Was he truly any closer to justifying his existence than when he was with his father?

What if he did not have a justification, what if the world would be better had he never existed? His face paled as he felt a cold sting of truth in the thought. Maybe his essay was worthless because he too was worthless...

Slowly he worked himself into a mental frenzy, the world would have been infinitely better had Lucius Malfoy never existed, he was concrete in that belief. Logically it would be better had he not been born too: light cannot come from darkness, Apples falling from the trees, and all those time tested cliches ran through his head.

Without really paying attention to what he was doing he gathered his things and began hurrying to the university. It was not until he found himself outside of Hermione Granger's office that he came back to reality and hesitation took hold. The door was closed, but through the small glass pane the light was on. A glance to a paper hanging on her bulletin board declared that normal office hours were almost over, so she was either in or had left her light on.

But did he really want to enter? What if she confirmed his unjustified existence? A strange look crossed his face as he tried to figure out _when _her opinion became important to him. He concluded that it was probably because she was the only person in his life right now who actually knew him, his history, and his immediate future. Shaking his head and regaining more control of his mental facilities he turned to leave, but as fate would have it he only made it one step before she came waltzing out of her office, almost physically into him.

Surprise lit her face as she registered the former Slytherin who looked as though he had been caught in the act, of what she was not sure, but he did look guilty. "Mr. Malfoy, what a surprise. Is everything okay?" Her voice was not accusing, merely curious and slightly amused.

She leaned casually against her door frame watching the male in front of her, at some point it appeared he had grown out of being a pale, skinny boy into being a pale, lithe man. He was quite attractive she noted, but he always had been, even back at Hogwarts where he was so cruel he was handsome. He opened his mouth, revealing a set of pearly white teeth, all in a line. Perfection, as always. Her dark chocolate eyes drank in the image of Draco Malfoy at a loss for words, it would certainly be one for the history books. After a few seconds of watching thoughts dart across his eyes but no words coming forth she decided to save him the trouble.

"I was just on my way out for dinner, have you eaten?" Her voice almost sounded motherly and he found himself shaking his head 'no' before his mind caught up with him. His blank mask was quickly placed over his face as he hid is discomfort at practically agreeing to have dinner with _Hermione Granger_, mudblood genius extraordinaire. If Granger noticed his discomfort she showed no sign and began walking down the empty hallway towards the exit doors.

Draco found his feet following without his approval. When had he lost control of his body? She paused at the doors, allowing him to catch up to her before continuing to walk through campus. They walked in silence, she did not appear uncomfortable with it though. Draco's mind was going hyper speed as he tried to figure out how he got into this situation and how to get out, he came up empty, but that did not stop his attempts.

"Granger, I'm not sure this is a good idea." He stated plainly, his voice devoid of emotion, when she shot him a curious glance he continued. "Considering our volatile past, and all that is on the line for me, I would feel infinitely better if we could limit our exposure to each other." There, he said it, and he said it politely and eloquently. Good job Draco.

"What, you do not think you can keep your tongue in check?" She teased, smiling somewhat wickedly. A quick nod in affirmation was all she received from her stiff walking partner. Laughter lit her eyes at his concession. Draco Malfoy was _trying_ to behave, what a hilarious idea.

She paused in her walking and turned to face him a semi-serious look on her face. "Malfoy, if you do not feel comfortable with me I understand. I know what if feels like to be tossed into a world you have very little knowledge of, I am simply trying to be helpful. Where it not for Harry and Ron, Hogwarts would have been vastly more confusing and aggravating."

The idea of Hermione trying to be his friend like she was with Scar head and Weasel made him pull a face of slight horror. But all she did was laugh at it. It was light, tinkle of a laugh and it floated nicely through the air.

"I won't force you to have dinner with me, but I must insist you tell me what you felt was so important you had to track me down at school." Despite her light and casual tone Draco remembered her temperament at Hogwarts well enough to know that she was stubborn and almost always got the answers she wanted, and so, feeling suddenly tired he conceded.

"I was unsure of the paper." He said tightly. She nodded in understanding. "You aren't the first one, have you anything written yet?" He gave a small nod, to which she gave him an expecting look. When he made no motion to continue the interaction she huffed childishly. "Would you mind if I look at it? And no need to be shy, I will have to read it eventually." She looked slightly exasperated.

"It's at home." his voice was still stiff, speaking volumes of how his discomfort had risen exponentially, he didn't want to trust or confide in Hermione, he didn't want her friendship or her understanding; truthfully, he knew that regardless of what he wanted he would get those things anyway. It was apart of her being a Gryffindor, unless you were outright attacking them, which he could not do, they were the most loyal, understanding prats to ever walk the earth.

Hermione stared at the stoic man before her with one eyebrow cocked up. "Is that so?" She drawled quietly. "Well, I suppose there is nothing to be done about it now. I am hungry and do not feel like forcing you to be somewhat social by intruding in your home." There was an emotion on her face that he could not place but it was something akin to disappointment. Despite this he breathed a sigh of relief and unconsciously ran a hand through his slightly tousled hair, he could hide away for a little while longer.

Granger must have read his thoughts because with a knowing smile she nodded her head in departure and began to leave. He watched her walk a few feet before turning towards him once more. "For future reference Mr. Malfoy, you won't be able to stave me off forever. I find you a mystery, and we both know how I feel about mysteries." She sent him a wink before turning and walking away once more.

A tidal wave of emotions swept through the stunned man. He was flabbergasted, flattered, slightly appalled, confused, and apprehensive. Nothing, not even the former dark lord himself, was able to stop Hermione Granger from solving mysteries. She seemed to take great enjoyment in unraveling the hidden clues and innuendos, and Draco Malfoy had many of those. Oh she was going to have a field day, heck she was probably already having a field day.

Shaking his head at his doomed future he turned to walk back to his small apartment, but a thought about half way there had him stumbling over his own feet. _Did Granger just hit on me?_

* * *

"The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible."-Oscar Wilde, 1854-1900


	3. Justification of the Self

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or any other famous, remotely popular, or hardly recognized works of other people—should cover everything, right?

A/N: I would like to thank my two lovely reviewers for the last chapter HopelessRomanitc31 and JuzJas82. You girls (making assumptions) literally make me an idiot with happiness, my husband keeps giving me an odd look :)

* * *

Hermione Granger was seated in Draco's small living room, her chocolate eyes reading over his paper that justified his existence. There was a frown on her face and a disappointed gleam in her eyes. "What kind of dribble is this?" She asked angrily.

Draco's face remained blank but he felt the sting of the comment and a sinking feeling in his stomach. "My reason for existing." He said plainly after she gave him a demanding look.

The scoff that left her lips was accented by the cruel look in her eyes. "This." She said, waving his papers back and forth in her hand. "This is worthless."

A slight drawing down of his brows was the only indication of his current mood, but he remained silent. The woman in front of him stood and approached him where he was leaning stiffly against his living room wall, he would have appeared nonchalant but his shoulders were too taunt, and his jaw was clenched.

She stopped a few inches from his face, officially invading his privacy. There was a crazed hate in her once beautiful eyes. "This is _worthless_. And do you know why?" She hissed with venom in her voice. She did not wait for him to respond.

"It's because _you_ are worthless. You, Draco Malfoy, do _not_ deserve to live!" Her hisses had risen to a shriek. He felt her wand being pressed into his soft flesh shortly after she quit her talking.

Cold terror penetrated his mind as he watched her glossed lips snarling "Avada Kedavra."

A blinding green light filled his vision and Draco found himself shooting upright in his bed. His breaths were too deep and too quick as he tried to mentally come to terms with the nightmare. His sheets were pooled around his waist, a cold sweat had covered his bare chest.

Closing his eyes he focused on his breathing, trying to calm it before he passed out from too much oxygen. Sighing in frustration he ran his shaking hand through his hair, tugging lightly on the strands before flopping back onto his bed. Wide, empty eyes stared up at his white ceiling.

That was the fourth night in a row he'd dreamt of Granger killing him after confirming his worthlessness, but it still had tremendous affect on him. In some part of his brain he registered the fact that he subconsciously felt his life was without a doubt worthless if Granger, _Granger_ of all people, had given up on him.

That girl would not give up on a dead horse.

Which explained some of his distress; He, Draco Malfoy, was not even worthy of being a dead animal. He took a deep breath and closed his dry eyes; ever since he had turned his paper in on Monday he had been anxious to get it back. Of course on the outside he was cool and collected; as per his habits. Luckily he had been able to avoid Granger since their encounter last Friday. He was positive that she would have picked up that he was not sleeping or eating well.

Sleeping because of the nightmares; eating because...well, he had yet to make a dinner that was edible. He _attempted_ to cook and take care of himself, but, he failed. Like in everything else he did the end results were only suitable for the rubbish can. He'd never felt more incompetent in his life.

Although, on the bright side, he had developed a wonderful love for fruit. No prep, no cook time, all he had to do was wash it. Apples and oranges were his favorite thus far despite their juicy tendencies. Sure he had eaten fruit during his childhood, but they were just 'okay' because he had house elves to cook him delicious dishes. It would appear that his sole dependence on fruits now had increased his liking of them exponentially.

Veering off his tangent about fruit his tired gray eyes focused blearily on the cheap plastic clock by his bedside telling him it was only 5 A.M.

In roughly 12 hours he would have to meet with Granger after class to 'discuss' things. She apparently counted his moment of deranged mental status the prior Friday as enough of a discussion on how he was doing. Not that he could blame her.

Groaning in frustration he tried to get a hold of his scrambled feelings and thoughts. At the very least he would get his essay back today, but that only made a chill pass over him. He was hopeful but dejected as well. He was not sure why he was so set on Granger approving of his essay, he just knew he was.

Crossing his eyes in a rare show of annoyance he hefted his tired body out of bed, clad only in his common cotton boxers, and wandered towards his small kitchen intent on a pot of coffee and a couple of apples. Despite the ungodly hour and lack of proper substance he enjoyed the immodest freedom entitled only to those who live on their own; he'd never been able to waltz about so indecent before, it was a nice feeling.

* * *

Draco's slate eyes followed his teacher's supple body as she handed out the graded essays, placing them face down on desks with a request that they not turn them over until she said to. She seemed a little tightly strung today, there was tension in her shoulders, a slightly grim look in her eyes, and her posture was rigid. He silently mused over the reason as she made her way methodically from front to back, but found that he knew too little about her life to sum up a reasonable answer.

If possible, she seemed to stiffen even more as she approached the former Slytherin who was lounging regally in his desk. She sent him an amused but tight smile at whatever she must be thinking, which was in and of itself a complete mystery so he did not even bother guessing.

She handed him his paper face down per trend and made her way to the front, her hips swaying softly in rhythm with her clicking high heels. Every students' attention was on their unusually silent teacher, she blinked slowly and took a deep breath before speaking. "As you all are aware it was necessary for an 80% or higher on this paper if you were to justify your existence. I would like you to turn your papers over."

Draco watched the faces of all his classmates go from apprehensive to flat miserable as they perused their grades before he too took his turn to face the big purple grade written on the front of his essay.

79%

He felt a wave of disappointment sweep through him. He failed. Hermione cleared her throat to bring the classes attention and disbelief solely on her. A grim smile was on her full pink lips. "If you had bothered to look around you would have realized that every single one of you failed."

Her words hung suspended in the air as she took a pause, the air in the class mildly unpleasant. She certainly knew how to set the mood.

"I am very well aware that the majority of you are exceptionally bright students who are accustomed to very high personal standards. And if it will relieve some of the anxiety, I will confess that I graded very harshly on this assignment despite my earlier statement of going easy. The majority of you should have passed." her tone was neutral as she ignored the little sounds of protest that sprung up from a few of the students.

"There are several reasons for my actions." She spoke slowly, her eyes fixing on Draco, taking in the blank look he had on his face. It would appear that Mr. Malfoy was not happy, but that was not really a new experience to Hermione.

"I purposely failed each and everyone of you to make sure you understood a few things about writing and life in general. The first is that regardless of the fact that you _know _you have a justifiable reason to do what you do, there will always be a strong opposition. I was the opposition this time, but next time it might be your boss, your family, or your friends. The point is that just because _I _tell you that you are wrong, does not mean that I am _right_."

Draco felt a chill run down his back at the conviction in her voice and the hidden message he felt was just for him. He was unsure if she was trying to tell him that his opinion of her did not matter, or if she was saying hers of him did not matter...perhaps it was both.

The uneasy silence was beginning to lessen, but Hermione's tone was still somber as her eyes drifted slowly across the faces of her students. "The second reason I have for my actions are more psychological: had some of you passed and some of you failed there would have been a subconscious line being drawn between those that are competent and those that are not. Life cannot be so nicely defined by black and white, nor can success and failure. And despite the fact that you would not have been conscious of discriminating against your fellow classmates, they certainly would have been."

She closed her eyes a bit too long for it to be a blink before opening them and continuing. "By failing all of you I have placed the entire group on level ground, no one is higher than one another, as a group and as individuals you received a 79%. Some may protest that this assignment was a farce by grading standards and that is okay. I honestly believe that something like defining and justifying your existence cannot be measured on a scale of 1 to 100, least of all by a stranger."

The way she spoke was calm but Draco could see that many students were highly sensitive to the things she was saying, he was among that group, not that he would admit it. "The third and last reasonably definable justification I have for doing this is that had you passed, you would have become complacent. What, after success, is there left to achieve? And so by placing you all so close to succeeding, and yet so far from achieving it you will hopefully resist complacency. Your justification for existing, can and will change the more you discover the world around you and within you, I would like you to be aware of the changes so that you are not parading around under an outdated banner of justification."

She sighed deeply before clasping her hands behind her back, rocking forward onto her tip toes and then back to the floor with a clack from her heels she smiled at the slightly befuddled group. "Any questions?" Her voice was amused, something that Draco did not appreciate.

A random boy in the class spoke without raising his hand. "If justification is relative, what gives you the right to presume to teach us these 'life' lessons?" He asked, somewhat sarcastically, a bit sore he failed despite her reasoning. Which Draco found a tad offensive, only he was allowed to be mean to Granger, he was much better at it anyway.

Hermione chuckled a little, sending a rather sardonic smile towards her smart-mouthed pupil. "Mr. Sanders, I am your Professor, by consenting to take this class you consent to replace your relativity with mine. If you do not feel like consenting, you are more than welcome to leave." Draco had to suppress a smirk, what an eloquent way of saying "Because, I said so."

It would appear that Granger's tongue and wit were as sharp as always.

Ignoring the look of anger in Mr. Sanders body language she blithely asked her question again. "Any more queries?" But they were not idiots the last time they checked, so they stayed silent. "Good, then I will explain the actual grading scale I plan to use."

"On essays it will be a scale of one to nine, one being awful, nine being superb. On projects there will be an assigned amount of points that will be disclosed at the time of the project. We will be reading King Leer by Shakespeare, Invisible Man by Ellison, The Gutenberg Elegies by Birkets, and a few other pieces. Along the way we will be learning to read, write, speak and think for ourselves. We will employ a heavy dose of rhetoric to achieve the aforementioned goals. For the next class I would like you to read chapters one through three of Invisible man and be ready to discuss them in class. I will be available after class for a short while if there are any issues." And with that Hermione Granger dismissed the class in a professional manner.

No body stayed after.

* * *

4:45pm

He was early, underestimating how long it would take him to walk across campus, but there was not much to be done about it now. He was absentmindedly wondering when Granger had learned all these random but applicable 'life lessons'. They all made sense in theory, but he wondered if she practiced as much as she preached.

Guess there was only one way to find out.

And with that Draco Malfoy confidently rapped his knuckles against her office door a small smirk on his face, _this_ time it would be he whom made Granger uncomfortable, or at least that was his plan. It was not much a of a plan to be honest though.

He heard a muffled "Come in." and strode in confidently to behold the view of a very stressed looking Hermione Granger, she did not even bother to hide it in front of him, like she did in class. It made him both uncomfortable and mildly appreciated that Granger did not feel the need to put up fronts with him.

That is not to say that he would drop his, just that he was aware of her trust in him. Meant nothing about him trusting her.

"Hello, I just need to gather a few things and then we will be relocating, if that is suitable to you." She said distractedly while her brown eyes finished scanning the paper she held in her steady, but pale hands. Draco noted how her overall parlor seemed to be lighter than normal, even her chocolate eyes seemed lighter, more comparable to mocha than chocolate.

He briefly wondered why he could only find victual based descriptions suitable for her eyes. Perhaps it was because he had not had a decent meal in a while.

His smoky eyes drifted around her office, it was fairly nondescript: bookshelves, books, a couple potted plants, and a small couch shoved in a corner. There was also Hermione sitting at her desk, which held a computer and a few binders.

There were no displays of personal affections like family pictures or even pictures with friends; consequently, Draco could not help but wonder _why_ there was not ample evidence of Scar Head and Weasley in her life. Last he recalled they were rather chummy with each other.

He briefly wondered if the lack of aforementioned items had anything to do with her sudden retreat from the wizarding world. It seemed unlikely, but both Potter and Weasley had tremendous amounts of stupidity in them, so it was entirely possible.

A heavy sigh drew his attention back to the woman sitting in front of him. Curiosity flickered in his eyes before, and only god knows why, it floated out of his aristocratic mouth. "Everything okay?" It was a simple question that was circulated in everyday speech, but he suddenly felt as though he was using a foreign language. Luckily it came out as a drawl, which only conveyed boredom with a very minimal, almost sneering, derisive sort of interest.

"Ron and Lavender Brown are getting married." She mumbled while folding up the paper in her hand before tucking it into a bag beside her desk that he had missed in his earlier inventory of her office. An indulgent smirk crossed his handsome face that Hermione wished she had missed.

"Do not even insinuate any crack pot theories about jaded or shunned lovers Mr. Malfoy." There was clear annoyance in her flat voice, which only made Draco smirk more. "Whatever do you mean?" He questioned silkily, sounding the farthest thing from innocent.

She gave a lady like snort at his poor attempt. "Would you like to eat at a restaurant, my place, or yours? I know you do not want to be 'exposed' to me but since this is mandatory, I must insist on having provisions."

He mentally weighed the pros and cons of each situation: his house was out since there was a serious lack of food, he would prefer not to know where Granger lived, but he did not have enough money to being going to restaurants and though the current situation was a blow to his pride he absolutely refused to allow a girl, even if it was just Granger who might not count, to pay for him. What a repulsive idea.

"Your place, assuming you are not planning to poison me." He said half joking, half serious; to which she just rolled her eyes. "If I felt like killing you, I certainly would not be using poison." She muttered darkly as she stood, bag in one hand the other out stretched for him to take.

Well _that_ was reassuring.

He stared at her delicate hand that was waiting for him to touch it so she could apparate them away, the look on his face must have been mildly insulting because she huffed before forcefully grabbing his larger one hovering over hers. She must have perceived his hesitation as disgust at having to touch her, but really he was hesitant because he was simply not used to physical contact.

She dragged him out of view of the glass plane on her door, her grip firm but her hand soft. It was actually giving Draco a slight tingle up his arm to be holding her hand, which sent alarms off in his head. He needed to get out more if the small action of holding hands was eliciting reactions, when had he turned into such a girl?

He was so lost in his musings of his missing manhood that he failed to note to look of concentration that crossed Granger's face as she apparated them to her flat. Caught off guard and wholly unprepared for the semi familiar rush of magic to flow through him he stumbled a bit when they appeared in her living room, his head whirling painfully. A small, warm hand helped steady him, leaving a patch of tingling skin on his shoulder where she had touched him.

Physical contact with Granger was quickly rising on his list of things to avoid; although, the reason he had in Hogwarts was completely different than the reason he had now. Grounding himself he gazed at his surroundings as he followed her from the living room into the kitchen, noting when she placed her bag by the door.

Her flat was larger than his but not extravagantly so, she had nice up-scale furniture and earth colored walls with a mix of modern and classical decorations. Overall it gave off the vibe of belonging to an intellectual. There were no pictures of her years at Hogwarts or any personal life really.

He was starting to wonder what had transpired that was so devastating that she had to strip her life of anything personal. But he held his tongue, now was not the time to be prying, that would come later.

"The first door on the left is the loo, the second is my library, and the first on the right is my bedroom. You can go to the library if you do not feel like watching me cook, it should only take a few minutes though." She spoke calmly, gesturing down the hall they were passing, not facing him, and acting for all the world that she was not wandering around with her back turned to a death eater. And perhaps she truly was not worried about him attacking her.

He silently seated himself at a small mahogany dining table where he had a clear view of her cooking, he would not tell her, but he was hoping to learn a thing or two. Then _maybe,_ just maybe, he would be able to eat more than fruit...

Watching Hermione Granger cook was an odd experience, she used a bizarre combination of magic and muggle actions to prepare it. She would physically fill the pot with water but magically summon ingredients to her hands. The disconcerting thing was that she did so silently without the use of her wand.

He had a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. Hermione Granger was apparently more powerful than he last remembered if she had perfected nonverbal, wandless magic, and for all intent and purposes it appeared that she had. "When did you learn nonverbal wandless magic?" He found his mouth asking without his brain's permission, a filter in his head must have busted at some point.

She gave a small jump, as though she had forgotten he was there, before turning her head so she could look him in the eyes. "The final battle. My wand had been broken by a death eater. There is something to be said about self preservation apparently." Her tone was light, though her eyes looked haunted.

His eyebrows rose in surprise at her admission. He had a hard time imagining Granger learning things on the fly, but she had always been exceptional at anything academic. The sound of pasta being boiled was soon filling the air as she summoned lettuce, carrots, and a few sticks of celery and began chopping and peeling the vegetables by hand.

Granger was a confusing slip of a woman. Moments like this it appeared that she had no qualms answering personal questions, but it seemed as though she did not find them personal, more akin to facts of the past than personal memories.

"What made you leave the wizarding world?" He asked evenly, testing his theory. He did not get his answer immediately, and she continued making dinner, summoning a colander, before draining the noodles and sliding them into a large bowl and adding the Alfredo sauce. He thought that his theory was incorrect, and that she did have some secrets, but once she had set the plates, brought the food, and seated herself directly across from him she looked him dead in his eyes and whispered one word, almost like a painful prayer.

"Pansy."

She took a sip of water and a moment to clear the emotion from her voice and eyes before continuing. "I had seen her momentarily in the middle of the battle and thought it odd that she would be there. As far as I knew her family had gone into hiding, but I had bigger things to worry about than a rogue Slytherin wandering around."

Draco's emotionless mask must have cracked a little at the mention of his former friend, he had not heard a whisper from her since their sixth year at Hogwarts right before she fled to be with her family.

"The death eaters where in the process of fleeing when I found them." There was a tinge of disgust in her voice.

"She was on her knees on the ground, Ron was standing over her, wand in her face, as she begged him to help her. Her face was smudged with blood, dirt, and tears; she was a wreck, but Ron did not seem to care." her voice had gotten a bit higher and her face had paled a bit, but her eyes were still eerily blank.

"He was going to kill her." She whispered, visibly shivering at the memory. She was still looking in his direction but she was not really seeing him, she did not see him clench his fist in anger, nor did she see the look of cold hate burn in his dull silver eyes.

"I was about 3 or 4 meters away when I realized it. I tried yelling at him, but he was not listening. I had to stun him. When I got there Pansy grabbed my hand, clinging to it like a life line. She was sobbing, but not over what had about happened."

She paused, refocusing her eyes on the present and the man in front of her. "She was sobbing over you." She said quietly.

The words hit Draco like a ton of bricks.

"She kept insisting that she had to find you. She could not let Lucius take you away again. She kept saying that Lucius was going to try and take the Dark Lord's place and that she had to find you. She wanted to save you from another living hell." Granger's eyes softened a bit as she thought of the other girl.

"She was desperate and it broke my heart. We were all such kids, so unprepared for the horrors of war. She kept insisting that it was not your fault you were a death eater, your father made you. And I believed her."

She closed her eyes for a moment, taking another sip of water. "I told her I would help. But by that time Harry had found us and he revived Ron. Oh it was a terrible mess. I tried to get them to understand, but they would not listen. We were all just caught up in the hands of fate. Just because someone was the opposition did not make them wrong or evil. They told me I was hysterical and in shock. That I was not in my right mind."

"Harry did not want to kill her though, he wanted to turn her in so that she could be tried, then the court could decide if she should live or not. His conscious would be clear." Some emotion was starting to seep into her eyes. It seemed to swell into a storm, rolling around in her gaze, revulsion mixed with sorrow.

"When I told them she did not have a dark mark and reminded them that she had gone into hiding before things could get too nasty they just told me that I was being _soft_. They told me 'Hermione, its Parkinson. _Parkinson!"_ As though a name was enough to condemn her forever."

Draco shivered at the intensity in her darkening eyes, it had begun to tinge her voice as well. "They were just going to abandon her, a relatively innocent girl. A girl we _knew_. A girl we had spent **six** years of our lives living around. What the hell did it matter what part of Hogwarts she housed in? She was still a Hogwarts student, a part of our school family."

"I remember the broken look in her eyes. She thought that I would listen to them." A bitter scoff came from her pretty lips. "I remember telling Harry and Ron that they were no better than death eaters before latching onto Pansy and appareting us away." A small smile broke through the storm.

"She was frantic when we she realized what I had done. Kept insisting they were going to try and kill me now too, call me a blood traitor and send aurors after me. I remember laughing and telling her that _I_ could never be a blood traitor since I was already muddy, and she got this wide, doe eyed look and began stuttering before she just dissolved into a mess of tears and hiccups." A small smile had worked its way onto Draco's face as well. Good old Pansy. It felt good to hear his dear friend talked about so kindly.

"When she calmed down and wanted to know why I was doing this I did not really have a coherent answer. I just told her that they were wrong and I was going to help her." Her tone had returned to normal as had her eyes. The clink of her picking up her fork drew Draco's eyes down and he realized that they had yet to touch their food.

"I was able to get her back to her family, and settle her down. We still keep in touch, once a month we meet for coffee and catch up." A genuine smile curved her lips up in a rather attractive way. "If someone had told me that one day my best friend was going to be a Slytherin, I probably would have hexed them. But she has been wonderful, still very Slytherin, but I think I have grown accustomed to it." She said laughing at some personal memory he was not privy to.

"I promised her that day almost seven years ago that I would try to help you if I could and if you would let me. I think I realized that day that I did not know enough about life to decide what was right or wrong, and that I would never know both sides of the story. Since everything was relative I would just have to stick to my morals and do what I thought right."

Ah, so that is where she learned her life lessons; life. What a funny concept.

She let him sit in silence, soaking in her story, as she dished them both a bowl of salad and put some noodles on their plates. Her story explained quite a bit about her treatment towards him. He was unsure if she was kind to him because it was second nature to her or if it was her promise to Pansy, perhaps a little of both.

"She is doing fantastic by the way." She said in between bites. Hermione's sharp eyes did not miss the look of longing on her dinner guests face, the show of emotion was touching, even if he meant to keep it hidden.

"I was actually hoping you would willingly come with me to visit her in a week or two. I know she would be ecstatic to see you. I have not told her about you yet, I was hoping you would help me surprise her." Her voice was a bit hesitant at asking his help. After all this was Draco Malfoy, and Malfoys were not really known for their helpfulness.

Draco felt a tug at his heart, whether it was from the prospect of seeing Pansy again or the semi-pleading look Granger was giving him, he was unsure. He hoped it was Pansy.

"Of course I will help you, she was my friend first." He found himself saying in a relatively polite tone. The smile that Granger shot him could have powered a city block, that being said it also seemed to send little electric shots down his spine.

He had a sinking feeling that this reaction could not be blamed on Pansy. Avoiding Granger was slowly moving its way up his list of things to do, too bad he just agreed to spend more time with her outside of class. He never had been too good at to do lists.

"Splendid! I cannot wait to see her face, oh, she will flip." She rambled happily. A sudden thought seemed to flutter through her mind which quickly killed her smile. "Er, Malfoy, there are a few things you should know about her..." She said with discomfort as though she would rather not say it at all.

He nodded for her to continue as he had food in his mouth, which by the way, was delicious. Not that he was going to tell her that.

"Well, Pansy lives up in Wales with her family now..." She trailed off, trying to get him to understand without actually saying anything.

He swallowed his food before replying. "That makes sense, Pansy's always been really close with her family."

"No, not her family. I mean _her _own family, as in husband and children..."

The look on Draco's face must have been distressing because she quickly continued, speaking faster than he had ever heard her speak before.

"I know you guys used to be close, and she did wait for you for a couple years. But then she met Andre, and well, he was just so good for her. And honestly I was unsure that you would ever be in the right mind frame to be a loving husband and father considering the past few years. I am sorry but I could not let her sit around and waste her life when she could be so happy. It was not fair to her or you. I mean, she would have to sacrifice years of happiness on a maybe, and what if you were ever in a position to make her happy, you feel obligated to do so..."

She took a deep breath to continue her frantic ramble but was interrupted by a deep chuckle which rose slowly into a full blown laugh. Draco Malfoy was sitting across from her laughing, _laughing _at her obvious distress.

She had never heard him laugh before, not genuinely anyway. She had heard his evil chuckle plenty of times and a dry mocking laugh, but not a true one. It was rather charming actually.

When he quieted she was still staring at him with her mouth slightly slack. "Close your mouth Granger, it makes you look slow." He replied teasingly in an obviously good mood.

Her mouth closed with an audible click. "So, you are okay with this?" She asked slowly, as though she could not comprehend the idea.

A true smile set upon his lips, he honestly felt waves of relief. "Pansy and I were never in love with each other. Sure we loved each other and had our parents demanded we would have gotten married and had a relatively enjoyable life, but no, I am not upset. Quite relieved actually."

He watched as the tension literally melted out of Hermione's posture. "Good, I may like you Mr. Malfoy, but I was prepared to stop you if you were going to do something stupid, like try and break up her marriage." She said with the air of someone who had just been relieved of a tedious duty.

She turned her focus to her dinner and did not notice her counterpart go ridged at her words. Hermione Granger _liked_ him? Logically, that could have been concluded from their encounters and her helpfulness. But to hear it so plainly was alarming.

She was not confessing undying love or even a romantic interest, but that perhaps would have been easier to deal with. He could straight reject her on that since he did not feel the least inclined to do naughty things to or with her.

But like? Well, how to you stop someone from liking you? She was not emotionally invested in his reaction towards her liking him, like she would have been had she been romantically interested.

He did not have to like her back for her to keep liking him, he supposed he did not have to love her back either if she ever decided she loved him, but his refusal to reciprocate similar feelings were much more important if there was romance involved.

He had a sinking feeling that no matter what he did, Hermione Granger would always like him; after all, she had seen the worst of him and that did not seem to deter her.

"You like me?" He said softly, scrunching his face up as if the words tasted foreign. Hermione looked up and had to laugh at his discomfort.

There was a wry gleam in her eyes as she answered. "Heaven knows why, I personally blame Pansy. I apparently have a penchant for sulky Slytherins. You are a very amusing lot, you have to admit."

"Lot? As in more than Pansy and me?" He had a slight tone of disbelief floating through his voice. Just how many of his former housemates had she been hanging around?

She just grinned in response. "Pansy had drug me to a little get together of hers and I had to spend the afternoon around a few Slytherins from our year that had gone into hiding and avoided reprimands by the ministry. Although Blaise Zambini and Theodore Nott seemed less than impressed by my interest in them, even more so than you."

Blaise Zambini and Theodore Nott, how long had it been since he had thought of them? A smirk was forming on his face as he imagined the unlucky bunch being subjected to an afternoon of Granger.

"And you escaped alive?" He asked skeptically, despite her sitting across from him quite alive.

"No, they all turned on me halfway through our crumpets and tea and mercilessly tortured me before killing me." She said rolling her eyes, of course she survived, was he dense?

"Er, right. Well, as much fun as this has been, I do believe our hour is up." Thank Merlin, he added silently. Extended amounts of time spent around Granger could only lead to bad things, like him liking her back. Gross.

The attractive woman across from him waved one delicate hand in a lazily elegant manner and sent all their dishes to the sink. She stood before a thought floated through her eyes. "Oh, before we go I have another book for you." She said excitedly, before rushing down the hall to her library, not giving him the chance to protest.

He followed her a leisurely gate and entered the room, expecting a small room filled to the brim with books. What he encountered was something only magic could create. Her library was _massive_. No wonder she did not have a more expensive flat, it would appear she spent all her money on books. What a surprise.

There were bookshelves from ceiling to floor with small sliding ladders and the room must have been as big as his entire apartment. It was quite impressive, loathe he was to admit.

He quietly leaned against the door frame and watched the little witch hurry to the far side of the room before kicking off her heels and scaling the ladder with practiced motions.

It struck him that Hermione Granger was short. This was the first time he had seen her out of heels, it added a certain sort of appeal to her. Thinking back, even in her three inch heels he was taller than her by a couple inches. He must have grown since their times at Hogwarts, but maybe she was short back then too and he had been to busy to notice. It was entirely possible.

She ran a delicate finger across the spines of her books before she came across the one she wanted. She deftly pulled it from the shelf and half slid, half jumped from the rung she was standing on before scurrying over to him. Leaving her shoes discarded by the ladder.

Only Granger would be so excited about a bloody book. She reached him in a flurry of curls and enthusiasm, holding the book in front of her like a prize. "I cannot wait for you to read this. I wanted to give it to you with the first set, but I could not be completely stupid, less I get both you and I in trouble. But you seem grounded and not entirely evil, so I do not see the harm." She rambled sounding slightly like an idiot, in Draco's opinion anyway. He was unsure how to feel about the 'not entirely evil' comment.

"Gee Granger, I never knew you thought so highly of me." He said sarcastically, resisting the urge to roll his light gray eyes.

"Oh, hush up. I am doing you a huge favor with this." She stated primly before shoving the book in his hands.

"_A guide to wandless magic"_

His eyes widened in surprise. He glanced between the old worn book in his hands and the woman standing a scant foot away, looking for all the world as though she had singlehandedly made Christmas happen.

His brows furrowed as he asked slowly, hating himself for it. "Are you sure you should be giving me this? I mean, they said I was not to have my wand for four years..." Merlin help him, he was growing a conscious.

"But you will not be using your wand. Besides those hypocrites at the ministry took magic away from you more out of perverse pleasure than concern of safety. They could have easily placed restrictions on your wands, but they would rather make this program as uncomfortable as possible. They are hoping that the majority will fail and then they can parade around proclaiming their humanity at the second chance, and their innocence at having to send you to Azkaban. Sickening really." She added lightly.

The idea of Hermione Granger willingly breaking rules and regulations and badmouthing those in power was an odd experience; perhaps Pansy had rubbed off on the once straight laced Gryffindor.

"Granger, you are starting to worry me, are you feeling okay?" He asked seriously, placing his hand against her forehead without really thinking about it. She did not have a temperature though...so perhaps she had just lost her mind, yes that was feasible.

"Yes, Malfoy. I am feeling just fine. Now quit being a baby, I need to get you back home." She said removing his hand from her head and apparating them to the living room of his flat. His head spun from the sudden unexpected transportation.

"Bloody hell Granger! Quit doing that." He groaned, as his eyes refocused on the image of Hermione Granger standing barefoot in his living room, looking around with curious eyes, even though she had obviously been there before.

She sent him a slightly wicked smile and just shrugged in response. "Please read that book, I would like to see some progress by next Friday." She said using her best teachers voice before disapparating from his sight.

Merlin help him if he had to spend the next four years of his life with Hermione Granger, she was completely off her rocker in a completely logical way. Making perfect sense in her nonsense and simultainiously building and tearing down walls.

Daft little twit.

* * *

"We can never judge the lives of others, because each person knows only their own pain and renunciation. It's one thing to feelt hat you are on the right path, but it's another to think that yours is the only path"-Paulo Coelho


	4. Things Unknown

Disclaimer: I do not own anything of monetary value, nor am I profiting off of this.

A/N: A heartfelt thank you to: BriarX,Loser that is me, Noir Lime Canuto, and HopelessRomanitc31; you guys are the BEST, be happy.

* * *

The pretty summer weather that had taunted students as the beginning of the semester was nowhere to be seen, replaced by the normal drearily damp days of English lore and history alike. The air had a bit of a bite to it, a man from the radio declaring it was currently 15 degrees Celsius and a good chance of precipitation, making for a very wet Saturday.

Draco distractedly listened to the forecast coming from his cheap little clock, his mind was a bit muddled as of late. Though, it was understandable; there was class work, leisure work, domestic work, and a great deal of emotional work that he was attempting to juggle all at once.

His smokey gray eyes stared thoughtfully out his living room window from his spot on the couch, a half drank cup of coffee warming his hands. Absentmindedly he swept a few wayward strands of blonde hair out of his face, it was getting too long to gel properly, but not long enough to pull back. Not that he thought he could bear to look that much like his late father. There was an irrational fear that a physical resemblance would eventually evolve into a mental one as well.

Personally he felt that this shaggy care-free hair only helped complete his look of casual middle class college student. The jury was still out on his feelings of actually being a middle class college student though. At least he did not look as visibly incongruous as he felt. Appearances were more than enough at the moment.

He was trying to iron out some of his mental wrinkles before he went and saw Pansy in a couple of hours. So far he had accomplished very little, his thoughts kept wandering through random memories, choosing to stroll about leisurely instead of work diligently to straighten out some of his thoughts.

Images of a younger Pansy drifted serenely through his head. He was mildly upset that the majority of memories he had of them together were tinted with darkness, a cloud of smog polluting their time together. He wondered about the Pansy that Granger knew, the one who did not have to take sides on blood status, the one who had grown up, fallen in love, and became a mother.

A flash of regret echoed across his cloudy eyes; he wish he had been around to see his Pansy turn into Hermione's Pansy. Logically speaking, he knew that had he been present that all parties involved would not have turned out the same. Had she found him that day, would things have been different?

Would he have gone with her? Would he have abandoned her? What if they had been killed while trying to escape? Would Hermione still be the woman she is today? Or would she have stayed with Potter, Weasley, and her prejudices? Would anything have changed that fateful day?

All things considered, his current situation was actually one of the better scenarios. He was not dead or imprisoned, nor was he trapped in a living hell. Granger was not too bad after one grew accustomed to her rather eclectic philosophy on life, once that was established her actions and words did not seem as nerve grating as they once had.

That, and she was not too hard on the eyes either. Not that he felt attracted to her, just that he felt she was in her own right attractive. A fine line that had more to do with personal tastes than physical features, mind you.

It had been two weeks since he had dinner at Hermione's flat but the memory was still fresh. His subconscious had taken a liking to replaying the events that took place that fateful Friday, the raw emotions she had hid so well. But try as she might, she could not hide her true feelings from Draco, he was a Malfoy after all. Trained since birth to read the small glitches in a persons body language and ignore the words that came from their mouths.

Mouths could lie, even pretty little mouths like Granger's. Her body language could not.

He did not miss the desperate longing that would subtly appear whenever she mentioned Harry or Ron. Even her disgust at their actions was overrode by sorrow. There was no regret that he could detect, just a genuine emotion that fervently wished things had turned out better.

The idea of Hermione Granger was an intriguing one. She essentially stood for all that was right and good in the world, hell, she abandoned her best friends for her morals. And truly, he decided, that is what it had come down to that day.

Hermione Granger's entire purpose in the war, other than staying alive, was to stand up for her morals and beliefs. Killing Pansy was the antithesis of that, and her already worn mental stability that day probably could not handle the idea that the people she was fighting along side, the people she loved, were so willing to violate those morals, her morals. Adding to the mix was the fact that Pansy was displaying the loyalty and devotion that Hermione held for her friends, which was ingrained in her moral code. In that one moment in time the tables were turned and it was a Gryffindor betraying her moral code and a Slytherin upholding it. To the outside world it would seem that Granger had switched sides, but she was the only one who held steadfast in her conviction and the situation was so perfectly reversed it was not likely that the other players even noticed their role changes.

And so Granger, in a show of righteous anger, that she used to pulled off so well if memory served him, fled from her friends' flawed moral code more than from her friends themselves. He wondered if she knew this. He wondered if Potter and Weasley or even Pansy knew this. He actually wished he was there to witness the entire event. If he had been able to work out this much just from hearing it secondhand, image all he could puzzle out if he saw it play out before his very eyes.

Draco Malfoy did not know as many things as Granger did, he was not sure if he ever wanted to, but one thing Draco Malfoy knew very well was how to analyze people. And Hermione Granger was his current specimen. And what a pretty specimen she was.

The meeting that would have taken place yesterday was postponed due to the amount of time he would be spending with her today, she had taken pity on him and declared that two consecutive days would probably drive him back to his death eater ways, which was not something she was overly fond of. He silently agreed, to which part is anybodies guess.

They had met briefly last Friday, but it was a quick, cordial meeting that did not reveal much to either. Well, that is not entirely true, now that he thought of it. Hermione seemed rather distant from him. Once again she hid it well, only her body language and her eyes gave it away. He was rather impressed with her ability to sound well vested and connected to the present, but that Friday her thoughts had been elsewhere and she did not feel like discussing it.

He had refrained from asking her simply because it seemed like asking Granger questions was like willingly jumping into freezing cold water without knowing how to swim. The entire experience is mildly traumatizing but the knowledge gleaned from it would certainly last a lifetime. He had not felt like struggling to keep his head above water that night. If he was not careful he could easily drown in her.

He wondered when she would stop being complacent and start digging into his personal life; up to this point she had let him ask all the questions. But he was not sure if she had answered all his questions because they involved him or simply because she did not feel like hiding the truth from him.

A loud 'pop' sounded a few feet from him, but he continued gazing out the window, unconcerned. Apparently he had been thinking longer than planned, and of Granger mostly, he was not sure if this wasted his time or made it productive. Her heard her enter his kitchen and rustle about until he heard the clinking of a mug being set on the counter. She was helping herself to coffee, the mug in his hands had turned cold despite being held. A few moments passed and he heard her feet patter over to him.

He felt her weight sink the cushion of the couch next to him, she was not indecently close, the couch was just rather small and he could feel the light contact from the left side of her body, she was only just brushing against him and truly he did not even mind sharing the couch with her. Nor did he really mind her making herself at home with the coffee. He wondered when he had gotten so comfortable with her presence.

The faint smell of vanilla drifted off of his couch partner, mixing nicely with the strong coffee aroma. Perhaps he would keep her around simply for her aromatic qualities. He mentally snorted at the idea, never in the history of life had there been such a know it all air freshener, it would be quite a bother if that was the only reason he kept her around.

With a deep sigh he torn his eyes from the dreary clouds that blanketed England that day. When he though of visiting Pansy he had imagined the weather would be cheerful and warm, like he wanted the reunion to be. It might be a bad omen that it was so depressing outside, he hoped that the meeting would not turn out the same as the weather. He truly had missed his Slytherin friend in his own way.

He turned his attention to the warm body next to him, amusement trickling over him as he took in the sight of Granger. She was in a pair of dark jeans and a rather comfy looking gray hoodie with the words 'Oxford' written in green across the front. She had a pair of black tennies on with a sliver of her green socks showing around her ankles. Her hair had been pulled up into a high pony tail and there were no traces of make up that he could see. It was rather interesting to see Granger dressed so casually, he had only seen her in her teaching outfits, this casual look gave her a softer appeal.

But the funny part was the expression that had possessed her face. She was staring intently at the coffee, looking at it as though it was the love of her life. Her dark chocolate eyes had a dewy quality as she gazed lovingly at the liquid. He wondered what she was seeing in it but said nothing.

She took a sip, closing her eyes and savoring the bitter taste in her mouth. It was then that he noticed she looked extremely tired.

"Rough night?" He asked softly, more due to the close proximity than from genuine concern. Sure, he was curious, but lack of sleep was something everyone suffered from at times, and generally nothing too overly worrisome.

"Mhmm, nightmares." She said distractedly, focusing on taking another sip. He let silence take over after her answer. Logically he was not surprised that Granger would suffer from nightmares, he was there during the majority of her traumatizing experiences, and nightmares were understandable.

What he did find surprising was that he never pictured Hermione Granger as the type to get nightmares, she always seemed so strong and self assured, the idea of a weak Granger was something he could not quite imagine. For being such a small woman she sure had a big presence.

He briefly wondered if her nightmares had returned because he had, or if she still suffered them regularly despite the amount of time that went by.

She finished her cup and placed it on his coffee table before sitting back and letting her head rest against the back of his couch, eyes closed. He arched an eyebrow at her despite her temporary lack of vision. The picture of Hermione Granger lounging on his couch, next to him, and seemingly at rest was even more amusing than her love sick stares at coffee.

He glanced at the watch on his wrist, he still had an hour or so before they were supposed to leave.

"You are early." was all he said, feeling a little better knowing that he had not wasted as much of the day staring out the window as he had previously thought.

She mumbled something about not wanting to be alone, eyes still closed, half asleep. Had it been ten years earlier, Draco would have literally been giddy with evil intentions at the prospect of the Gryffindor mudblood falling asleep on the couch next to him. That being said, he was still mentally laughing at the idea, almost a decade of maturity later.

That is, until he felt her head loll to the side and come to rest on his shoulder. All mental laughter stopped as he unconsciously went rigid, unsure what to do. He could shove her off of him, as per his first response, but he did not want to deal with a grumpy Granger for the rest of the day, especially considering the stakes.

He could also try and maneuver himself out from under her but that would just make her slump over and probably wake up, which would not be too bad, as she probably would not remember falling asleep against him; it was certainly a viable option.

Or, he could just let her be.

They still had a bit of time before they had to be anywhere and she was not hurting anything by sleeping against him, it did not look like she was going to start drooling at the very least. The small contact was actually quite comforting, as was the heat he felt from their close proximity. My how he had missed having a warm body next to him, even if it was just platonic.

Resigning himself to his not so terrible fate he got a little more comfortable before he too closed his eyes, soaking up the peaceful feeling of having a companion. A small smile drifted over his pale lips as he slipped into a light sleep.

* * *

The sound of a telly ringing loudly had both occupants of the couch jumping from the sudden noise. Granger jerkily grabbed her cell phone from her hoodie pocket before answering somewhat groggily.

"Hullo?" A few seconds later her eyes widened dramatically a she whipped her head to look at a still sleepy Malfoy. A dark blush crept onto her cheeks as she realized she had just used Draco Malfoy as a pillow, of all things. If he still had his wand she would be dead, that being said, it is a good thing he had not progressed too much with wandless magic. Her life was safe for the moment at least.

She cleared her throat before ripping her eyes away from his and responding to the person on the other end. "Sorry Pans, I took an impromptu nap, I will be there in a couple of minutes." She quickly said 'goodbye' and hung up before standing and stretching, raising her hands above her head and popping her chest out to feel the satisfying cracks of her back.

"You look like a cat when you do that." Draco said randomly, still clearing sleep from his mind. He did not seem to mind their little nap together so Hermione figured she should not make a big deal of it either. It was just a nap after all. Hah, way to play down the fact that she had just fallen asleep against a man who had on numerous occasions physically and mentally hurt her.

Ignoring his comment and her train of thought she offered her hand to him. "We better get going, Pansy's waiting."

Any remaining sleep was quickly banished and a feeling of fearful anticipation took hold, not saying anything he resolutely nodded his head and stood before placing his hand in hers.

* * *

They appeared out of thin air into a dark, somewhat smelly alley. Draco was still steadying himself as he felt Hermione begin to walk away, her hand slipping out of his as she did so. Side long apparition always had been a bit of a bitch. The feel of another persons magic overpowering his own was disgruntling.

He followed her small form shortly after his mind regained equilibrium. She led them a few meters down the street before stopping in front of an up scale cafe. From what he could tell he was somewhere in Birmingham, which made sense since it was a midpoint between Oxford and Wales.

"Wait here please." She said, smiling somewhat nervously at his emotionless face, she did not miss the twinge of apprehension what swam in his smokey eyes. Deciding he would rather not stand around and look the fool he went and lounged on the bus bench in front of the cafe. If they could not recognize him from behind he could only conclude that they must be blind, no one could miss his hair. A few moments passed as he watched the muggles of Birmingham go about their day.

He heard them before he saw them.

"Honestly Hermione, what is going on? First you are late, which only happens when you are deathly sick, and then you do not want to stay in our _favorite_ coffee shop. Are you feeling well?" It was the voice of Pansy Parkinson, well, no, Pansy would have taken her husbands last name; he wondered what it was. She sounded a lot less hateful than he remembered, and though her tone was still a bit annoyed he could detect little lilts of concern.

"I _told_ you, it. is. a. surprise." Granger said emphatically. Some part of his pride did not like being called 'it' but he supposed if she called him 'he' Pansy would get overly curious.

"Is it, a he?" Never mind, he forgot how boy crazy she had been, of course she would think her surprise was a boy, despite her being married. Way to go Pans.

"Perhaps." Was all he heard Granger say before there was a loud, happy squeal from Pansy. "You got yourself a boyfriend?" Her excitement at this idea let him to conclude that Hermione did not, in fact, date, nor had she in a long time it appeared.

By this time they were almost directly behind him and he was slightly surprised that Pansy had not zeroed in on his hair the moment she walked out the door. But then again you do not really see things unless you are looking.

"I don't know, Draco, you're not my boyfriend, are you?" Granger asked him casually, acting for all the world as though she truly did not know. Funny girl, that Granger.

He turned his head to look over his shoulder and glanced at the two girls. "Come now, you both know me better than that." He drawled lazily, playing along. He watched as Pansy's dark blue eyes widened in shock before promptly filling with tears and her bottom lip started trembling.

He quickly stood and rounded the bench, the urge to comfort her as familiar as it had been all those years ago. What the emotional Slytherin did next was not something Draco and Hermione expected. They had both assumed there would be tears, and a couple hugs, mostly between Draco and Pansy, despite his known dislike for personal space invasion, but it would appear they had underestimated her. Then again an emotional Slytherin is a bit of an oxymoron, so anything could have happened.

Due to the close proximity Pansy had somehow snaked one arm around Hermione and the other around Draco, pulling them into an unexpected group hug. For all intents and purposes it would appear that the poor girl was having an emotional break down clinging to her friends on the very public streets of Birmingham.

"You found him, oh my god, Hermione, you found him!" She rambled in between sobs, trapping her friends in a very strong hug. Draco and Hermione shared a rather uncomfortable glance, unsure of how to react to being so close to each other while awake, Hermione had an arm wrapped around Pansy's waist and Draco had one around her shoulder and they were trying hard not to touch each other, but it was awkward standing with their arms limply squished together.

Draco did not want to remember this moment as awkward or strained, besides Granger had already fallen asleep on him today, and considering all she had done for him up to this point he could suffer through a hug.

He muttered "What the hell." under his breath before snaking his other arm around Granger's tiny waste and pulling her tight. In for a penny, in for a pound, they say.

The surprised smile on her face was attractive in a dangerous way, it was so sweet and innocent. She wrapped her arm snugly around his midsection before closing her eyes and resting her head on his shoulder, she had missed being held. Harry, Ron and she had always been on the touchy feely side, despite all the years gone by, she missed being wrapped up in somebody's arms; even if they were the arms of Draco Malfoy.

Draco smirked to himself, he felt like an American pimp with two pretty girls clinging to him in public. Although if he remembered right, they were not usually clinging to the other girl or crying...but those were minor details.

Pansy quieted herself after a few minutes, feeling slightly silly for showing emotion, much less in public. She pulled back only slightly, still keeping within the circle of her friends' arms, and took in the sight of Hermione Granger resting her head against Draco Malfoy's shoulder, her eyes were still closed and there was a small smile on her face. Draco's arm was securely wrapped around her waist, his hand resting on her hip, the look in his eyes as he looked down at the woman in his arms was veiled, but Pansy could see a glimmer of happiness shining in them.

A slightly wicked grin formed on her face as her Slytherin mind started plotting, it was rather obvious anyway. She did not bother hiding her grin as his attention flickered back over to her, his smoky eyes narrowed in displeasure and he quickly extracted himself from the two girls. Honestly, he could not even appreciate physical contact without it being blown out of proportion.

Hermione looked slightly dazed and blinked a couple of times at the sudden loss of body heat and support. A small blush rose to her cheeks as she turned her attention on Pansy and studiously ignored the man who was a short distance away. She gave Pansy a proper hug before pulling back, but not letting go and saying smugly.

"Of course I found him, I am Hermione Granger, I make it a personal mission to reunite all of my former enemies." Draco wanted to roll his eyes at her antics.

"But truthfully Pansy, he actually found me, just showed up in class one day." She said much more demurely. Pansy's eyes had not left Draco's.

"Is that so?" She asked slowly, he could practically see the wheels turning in her head, which was never a good thing. Pansy, while she liked to play dumb for the masses, was a rather cunning and ambitious witch; it was one of the reasons he got on with her so well. Like him, she usually got what she wanted, come hell or high water.

Hermione finally released the Slytherin from her grasp, she had truly missed her friend. "Mhmm," Granger replied, seemingly oblivious to the dangerous look in her friends eyes, blind idiot. "I know we usually sit and talk, but I was thinking that today you and Draco catch up; I was hoping to go see Andre and Rylynn, I miss that little terror." She joked happily. The light in her eyes was something he had never seen before, not even back at Hogwarts when she was apart of the Golden Trio.

Draco's dull silver eyes took in the sight of Hermione Granger interact with Pansy and realized that she had been better at hiding her feelings than he had previously thought. He had thought that she was a generally happy person, content with her life and her place in it; it would appear that he was wrong.

If this was Granger happy then the one he was accustomed to was very close to miserable. Pansy's eyes found his and she must have seen what he was thinking because hers softened a little as she glanced at her friend before returning her eyes to him.

"I think that would be a wonderful idea Hermione, poor Andre is stuck with daddy duty today, and you know how well he handles that." Pansy said, glancing up at the sky, watching some memory or another float by. Granger's lips twitched up into a cunning smirk and a dangerous light gleamed in her chocolate eyes, a queer look pass over Draco's face, had she always been able to look so..._Slytherin ?_

"I think I will stop and get Rylynn some candy before I go visit..." She said somewhat wickedly, one step short of cackling malevolently, most likely planning to add to the poor man's chaos instead of bringing peace. With that purpose firmly in her mind she walked off, swaying her hips a bit more than usual.

Pansy watched Draco watch her leave. "What have you done to Granger, Pans?" He questioned without turning. There was a puzzled look on his handsome face and a calculating look in his light gray eyes. Pansy just grinned in response. In all honesty she did not do a thing to Hermione Granger, turned out she had always had a twisted mind, it was just hidden behind the fact that she used her twistedness for good instead of evil. But she would not tell Draco that, let him wonder. The more he thought about Hermione the easier he would be to manipulate.

"She would have made a great Slytherin, don't you think?" She asked him as they watched the Gryffindor princess wander out of sight. At this he did turn and look her straight in her eyes before somberly replying. "No, she was the only reason Potter and Weasley got half as far as they did. If it was not for Granger we would all be serving Voldemort or dead."

A bit of light left Pansy's eyes and Draco mentally kicked himself, way to be a prick. "I never thought of it that way." she said softly. A few tense seconds passed before she shook her head and smiled brightly at him before grabbing his hand and saying. "Come on _Draco_, we have some catching up to do." She mimicked the way Hermione had said his name, letting him know that it had not slipped by unnoticed. Damn that Granger.

* * *

A couple hours later they found themselves still chatting away in a back booth of the fancy cafe. Draco had tried to keep the conversation focused on them and their lives, but everything they talked about seem to lead back to Hermione Granger in one way or another. At first he was dead positive Pansy was doing it to be annoying, but about halfway through their chat he realized that Pansy could not help it.

Granger had literally given the girl her life back, helped her through the war, helped her get over Draco, helped her understand it was 'okay' to love Andre, helped her through what sounded like a beastly pregnancy, and then helped her raise her daughter, who was now going on four.

"Rylynn gets so excited when Hermione visits, she runs around the house screaming 'Aunty 'nee!' and she only calms down after Hermione picks her up and tosses her in the air for a bit. There was this one time they were playing and Hermione tossed 'Lynn a little higher than usual and 'Lynn freaked out, which threw her magic haywire and she ended up getting stuck midair, just out of Hermione's reach. Oh it was hilarious! Rylynn was screaming bloody murder and Hermione was close to hysterical as she tried to get her down. Andre and I could only laugh, it was too funny. She called us worthless friends for not helping her." There was mirth in Pansy's dark blue eyes as she shared some of her life. Draco would have liked to have witnessed that as well, the idea of Hermione Granger _not_ knowing what to do was a novel one.

"You know it is okay to talk about her right?" Pansy asked softly, looking in his eyes. She could tell he was uncomfortable talking about his former enemy.

He sighed before running his hand through his hair. "I do not get it Pans, how could Granger go from hating us to being your best friend?" Pansy opened her mouth but closed it for a moment, he was not done talking.

"Yeah, I get that she saved your life, that she abandoned her friend for you, and I get that she did it mostly because of her morals and somewhere along the way she and you became friends. What I do not get is how Potter and Weasley let her stay away." His voice was gruff, as it often was when he did not understand something, or someone. He was a notorious control freak.

Pansy cast her eyes on the dark cherry table separating them, chewing on her bottom lip thoughtfully. "There are a few things that Hermione went threw that you do not know of, I am not sure if I should be the one to tell you, but I doubt she will. Oh it was terrible." There was that phrase again, once again connected to Potter and Weasley. Draco had never liked the two, but the fact that they had elicited the same response from one girl he deeply cared about and another that...well, he supposed he cared a little, he did not want her to die at the very least, was only adding to his dislike of the two male Gryffindors.

"After she returned me to my family she promptly fainted, from exhaustion we figured, and we were partly right. It took her a week to wake up, which was in and of itself terrifying, she was so still we thought she had died a few times, and more than once my mum checked her for lingering spells. When she finally woke up we realized that something more than exhaustion had happened to her. At first she did not want to tell us, she kept apologizing that she could not trust us due to our past connections. It was not until the ministry showed up at our door demanding the arrest of Hermione Granger and myself that her secret was let out of the bag."

She paused before glancing in his eyes, looking guilty, as though she really should not be telling him this, before continuing.

"She heard the commotion and came to see what was happening, I think she caught the gist of the situation because she stepped around my father and haughtily asked the ministry official 'What the bloody hell she was under arrest for?' had it not been so serious I would have laughed, she was practically breathing fire and the official was so flabbergasted that such a short little girl was giving him lip. When he stuttered something about aiding with the escape of a death eater she flat out laughed in his face, it was a scary laugh, one that only an insane person could make. I remember it so clearly. She practically spat her words at him saying 'What death eater, you mean that girl over there, the one who does _not _have the dark mark on her arm, the one who stayed out of the whole bloody mess, the one that Harry James Potter was going to implicate to the ministry, the one that Ronald Bilius Weasley was going to _kill _just because she was a Slytherin? Because if that is why you are here you can go _fuck _yourself and your precious _justice!_" She shoved him hard as she began storming out the door and into the yard."

"The bloody idiot, took out his wand and shot a spell at her, he missed since it was just a warning shot, but I am positive he regrets that to this day. Oh, you should have seen it. She went stiff as a board before turning very slowly and staring him dead in the eye. I swear he about pissed himself. If he thought he was just making a routine arrest on a child he was quickly set straight. Nothing about Hermione seemed childish. She was terrifying. All she did was stare but I think everyone could feel the danger rolling off of her in waves."

"The official tried to reason with her, saying that since she was unarmed he would not attack her if she came quietly, which was stupid because nothing about her seemed quiet. She quirked her eyebrow and sent him a smirk, one that you would have been proud of, before casually asking 'Oh, is that so?' I think the official knew he was in deep trouble but he just gulped and nodded his head stupidly. What happened next almost made _me_ wet myself."

"She lazily lifted her arm and flicked her wrist once and his his wand came exploding out of his hand, not just flying, _exploding_, there were literally sparks. Her lips never moved, and she truly did not have her wand. Oh it was like watching something from a legend, a terrifying legend that was happening in your front yard, but still a legend. She held his wand in her hand and told him 'Now you are unarmed, if you leave quietly, I will not attack you. If you choose to put up a fight...well, you will find there are scarier things than Voldemort and death eaters.' and just like that she tossed his wand on the ground in front of his feet. He stood there as if he had just seen a ghost for the first time. She must not have liked that response because she hissed 'leave!' and he fled, only stopping long enough to pick up his wand."

Draco felt a shiver crawl down his spine as he imagined _that _Hermione. He saw the awe that was still in Pansy's eyes, and he briefly wondered why Granger had not been the one to kill Voldemort, she certainly seemed powerful enough.

"Once he left she just sank to her knees and started bawling, mum and dad were not sure how to react to the display they had just witnessed. None the less my mum went and tried to comfort her but she wrenched herself away and started screaming that she was a freak, a bloody freak of nature, and that she was no better than Voldemort, that she did not want this power, and then she started scratching at the skin on her arms wailing that she could _feel_ it, she could feel it squirming under her skin."

There were tears in Pansy's eyes as she relived that day. "We had to give her a calming draught, but even then she was not calm. She truly looked as though she thought she was a vile freak. It was so sad. The ministry official came back week later accompanied by several aurors, but she went peacefully. They seemed to have forgotten about me in light of her tantrum, I still wonder if she meant for that to happen, even half crazed and depressed she was brilliant. One of the aurors informed us that her trial would be the next day."

"Apparently her little display of power had the ministry concerned that she would be the next Voldemort. She was tried before any captured death eaters were even processed. We went to the trial, I think my mum and dad felt a deep connection to her, she had saved me twice now, at her own pain. I went because I have never met anyone like Hermione Granger, she did not seem real. The Granger I remembered from school was nothing like the Hermione I saw during those weeks. Granger had always been smart and studious, a goody-two-shoes who had them planted firmly on the ground. Hermione seemed so much more than that, she was wild, and I could literally feel the magic radiating from her if I stood close enough. She seemed so at risk of just losing her mind and floating away. But the person we saw at the trial we neither Granger or Hermione."

"It was perhaps a mix of both, but Merlin was she wicked. The interrogators did not stand a chance, everything they accused her was ripped to shreds under her biting logic. She was polite but only in speech, everyone could tell that she was pissed. And then Weasley testified against her. I thought she was going to lose it. When she was questioned about his testimony both the interrogator and Weasley were blushing with shame from her answers. I have learned several things from that and the biggest one being that Hermione Granger is always right, there is no argument that could not be picked apart by her in such a way that she will appear right."

"As per custom they let her have a closing statement, which was in hindsight, stupid on their part, but they would have appeared unfair if she had not received it. I do not know if she composed the speech or if she truly felt that way, but I suspect the last. I can still hear her words echo, I replayed int constantly for several days using my dad's pensive. She stood calmly and addressed everyone politely, even Weasley and Potter, the emotion in her voice was disabling.

'My name is Hermione Granger, I am a muggle born to some and a mudblood to others, but I always thought that I would just be Hermione to my friends. I always thought that my friends would be there to help me make sure everything was right, and that we could fix whatever was wrong, and I truly believed that. I have spent every year since I was eleven fighting against Voldemort, I have sacrificed both a normal muggle and a normal wizarding to support my beliefs and my friends. My beliefs that every magical being had the right to embrace their place in the magical community and my friends Harry and Ron who have proven to the world that good will prevail. They are hero's who deserve to be remembered as such. You will have to forgive me but I could not let them be remembered as murderers. Which is what they would have been had I not taken Ms. Parkinson's side. Mr. Weasley was not in his right mind, his brother had just been killed by a death eater who was closely associated with the house of Slytherin. The final battle was horrendous beyond words, and to see your brother die before your eyes is beyond feeling, it is beyond rational thought.'

'To my knowledge, both He and Harry fought the battle without the aid of the dark arts, and to let Ron come so far to lose it all with two irrevocable words was beyond inhuman. He saw a dirty death eater, part of the same group of murderers that felled his brother, begging for the life of another murderer. It is no wonder he lost what little grip he had on himself. But when I saw Pansy Parkinson down on her knees balling her eyes out and pleading for help from the only people she thought would be able to, I did not see a death eater begging for the life of a murderer. I saw me, down on my knees, pleading for the lives of Harry and Ron. Willing let a mad man point his wand in my face, if only he would save them, my friends, the people who are closer than family to me, so close they are practically apart of me. I realized at that moment that we were all just children, not even out of school, caught up in something so much bigger and meaner than we ever imagined. I realized that Pansy knew this all along, but still she made one last self sacrificing attempt to save her friend from the cruel hands of fate.'

'And so, for the sake of the wizarding world, for the sake of Harry and Ron, and for the sake of all those unfortunate souls who were born into dark families and raised to hate I had to stop him. I was not betraying the light, I was not aiding the death eaters, I was sticking to my morals, I was protecting my friends from themselves, and I was saving a heartbroken girl from dying an undeserving death. If you still believe me to be a traitor who deserves to be punished I will have no choice but to accept my fate, I will go gladly knowing that my simple act of defiance has saved at least one person from death and two from tormented consciences. I consider all three people my friend, and I will gladly die for them.'

Pansy paused, there were a few tears sliding down her face. "I think I fell in love with her at that moment. I never wanted to let Hermione out of my life. She was so kind and generous, and she cared...she cared so much." Pansy sniffled a little before giving him a watery smile.

"They found her innocent of all charges and apologized profusely, but she did not want to hear it, marching out of the ministry with her head held high. Potter and Weasley came running back but she would not take them. She was still at my house when they decided to apologize, I had followed her down to see who was visiting her. I was standing next to her fully expecting her to abandon me for them, but I was wrong again. When they said they were so sorry, that they had not been thinking and that they could not understand why she would protect me, they were hurt and angry, _they_ felt abandoned, but she had set them straight, they said. They knew they were wrong, they even apologized to me. They thought a simple heartfelt apology would be enough. But it was not."

A small smug smile fitted on Pansy's glossed lips. "She told them that while she was glad they _finally_ realized she was not an evil death eater, she would not be able to accept their apology or their friendship for a long while. She looped her arm through mine and pulled me closer, she was shaking terribly. She was crying when she told them that she was sorry but their actions have consequences and that losing her friendship was one of them, at least for a while."

Draco's eyebrows had found a new home somewhere up in his fringe and he let out a low whistle. How the _hell _had he missed out on all that drama? "So that was why she left the wizarding world? They tried to kill you, frame her, and then expected her to accept an apology all hunky dory?"

Pansy let a small chuckle at the 'hunky dory' wording, but nodded her head all the same. Her dark blue eyes peered in his smokey gray ones. "I know you may not like Hermione, but I truly love her like a sister, and Slytherin be damned, I am not afraid to say it." Her voice was both sentimental and threatening. He did not miss the warning and quickly held his hands up in surrender.

"I get it, Pansy, I honestly do. But I have one question, and pardon me if it sounds rude, but why would she choose to stay in contact with you all these years? She saved the you, cleared her name, and shunned her friends in the name of morality, but morality says nothing about becoming inextricable from your life." His words had a bit of bite to them, but it was more from being threatened than anything else, and she knew that.

"I used to ask myself that a lot, but after awhile I realized it was kind of obvious. Hermione Granger had spent the entirety of her wizarding life connected at the hip with her friends, she was used to having a support system and a family away from home, when she had to cut herself away from that she needed someone to fill the void, and I am more than happy she chose me. I have no delusions that I could ever fill the shoes of Potter and Weasley, she still misses them terribly, after all these years, but Hermione still needs a friend." Her voice was soft and sad, wanting to be for Hermione all that Hermione had been for her.

Draco found it a bit unsettling that his former housemate had grown so attached to the little Gryffindor princess. Deciding to switch gears a little he spoke. "So how much about me have you told Granger?" He sounded suspicious and was giving her a bit of a glare. The man loved his privacy.

She gave him a knowing smirk before teasingly replying. "Only enough to make her curious." Draco wanted to bang his head on the hard table but thought better of it in the public eye.

"Bloody Hell Pansy! Granger could not suppress her insatiable curiosity with the threat of Voldemort hanging over her, she is going to rip me to shreds." He complained childishly, studiously ignoring the little part of him that was excited that Granger found him intriguing, must be a rogue bit of pride, yes, that must be it.

"That was my plan all along." She said happily, Draco wanted to throttle her, Pansy made many plans, and while a few of them turned our terrible the majority of them turned out perfect. He was not sure which was more terrifying.

"I hate you." He grumbled to his Slytherin counterpart.

"I know, but you love me too. You cannot deny it any longer mister. You, Draco Malfoy, cannot help but love me!" She said dramatically, acting for all the world as if she was not making a public scene. Both were too focused on each other to notice a figure approach, Draco was busy trying to set Pansy ablaze with his eyes alone and Pansy was busy making doe eyes at him and pretending to swoon.

"Tsk, tsk. I knew it was a bad idea to leave you two alone, now I have to go break the sad news to Andre, and I promised him this would not happen." Hermione's voice had both of their heads snapping in her direction. She was grinning at the two old friends, happy they were getting back to their old habits.

She slid into the booth beside Pansy looking tired, but happy. In what appeared a rather practiced motion she slouched down in her seat and leaned heavily against the other woman, her head resting against Pansy's should in an eerily familiar manner.

"Do you make a habit of using all your Slytherin acquaintances as pillows?" It was out of his mouth before he really knew he was even speaking. Pansy's eyes widened as if to say 'Oh, really?' and a devious smirk fitted her plump lips.

Granger, for her part, turned a very pretty pink and stuck her tongue out at him childishly. Must be an after affect of babysitting.

"What have you two been doing, hmm? And _why_ have I not been told?" Pansy asked sounding a bit offended at being left out of the loop. Draco could not decided who he wanted to hurt more, him or Pansy.

"We have not been doing anything improper, if that is what you are implying. And you have not been informed because it is not your business." Granger said in a prim voice. And that would have suited Draco just fine, but she had to add the last part of. "Besides, it was just a little nap."

He could practically see Pansy holding back an evil cackle, what a witch.

Granger must have sensed what the other girl was going to say because she quickly amended her statement. "Before you start insinuating secret romances, you will do well to note that I am currently touching you more than I touched him _during_ the nap so chill, unless there is a secret romance between us that I do not know about."

Pansy had apparently picked up a new sense of humor because she dramatically said "Oh, but darling, how could you forget our nights in Paris?" She even stroked Hermione's hair in an overly lovey fashion.

Granger just snorted before grumbling. "You make a terrible pillow, at least Draco stayed quite." He was unsure if that was a compliment or not. He supposed in a backwards way it was, he would certainly be annoyed if his pillow started talking to him in the middle of the night.

"Perhaps, but I am much more comfortable." Pansy said arrogantly, he could not tell if she was teasing him or Granger. Probably him since he felt an unexplainable want for Granger to contradict her, he was Draco Malfoy, and Draco Malfoy was the best at everything. Or that is how _he_ felt anyway.

"Well, duh. You are a girl, we are always more comfortable than guys. That's why they keep us around. Love has nothing to do with it." Granger said matter a factually from her spot against Pansy.

"You're just jealous you do not have a man to go home to." Pansy said smirking down at the top of Granger's head.

"Touche." was all she replied carelessly. Pansy sent him a look that said _something_, it is unknown if he understood it or chose to play stupid.

If Granger needed a man it was no concern of his. Though he certainly could not see anyone from the school being worth her time, they were either too young students or too old peers. Theoretically he was the only viable male who knew of her being a witch, unless she suddenly rejoined the magical community, which did not look likely.

He narrowed his eyes at the two witches across the way. He did not even want to be thinking about Granger, let alone her nonexistent love life.

Pansy must have gotten better at manipulating because that was indeed all he thought about after returning home.

Evil woman.

* * *

"Women are quite able to make friends with a man; but to preserve such a friendship - that no doubt requires the assistance of a slight physical antipathy" Friedrich Nietzsche


	5. Cheap Wine

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or any other famous, remotely popular, or hardly recognized works of other people—should cover everything, right?

A/N: Thanks to all my loyal reviewers, each and every one of you are awesome and I apologize for the wait, life happened.

* * *

Have you ever met a genius before? If you have then you know they fall into a few standard categories. If you have not, then pay attention. There are dozens of different types of geniuses, but they can be lumped together due to common denominators.

The first type is the intellectual genius. These are people who have a very high IQ, either above 140 or 180 depending on if you side with Terman or Hollingworth, either way they are considered exceptionally bright in one or several academic areas. The majority of the people who fall into this category are socially awkward; either from lack of social skills or from an abundance of ego. The bottom line being that they are not all that popular. That is not to say that their peers do not acknowledge their academic prowess, it is more that their peers cannot see past their social shortcomings in order to establish a working relationship.

These are the people who redefine the entire history of humanity in moments of great achievement. The intellectual geniuses are the ones who create calculus which opens up avenues of things once impossible. The intellectual geniuses are the ones who find cures for deadly diseases which will save countless lives for generations to come. The intellectual geniuses are the ones who are noted for their massive contributions to the greater good of humanity, despite their lack of social acceptance from the masses they are bettering.

The second type of genius is that of creativity. These are people like DaVinci and Mozart. They contribute their lives to the arts and the beauty it brings to the world. Whether it is in the form of painting, music composition, or architectural achievements, their masterpieces are marveled at by the masses. These geniuses get along a bit better socially, although the majorities are noted to be very peculiar. On a rather ironic note, more creative geniuses prefer not to interact favorably with society.

Because of their acute levels of creativity they often find society to either be dull or plain ugly. And so in a show of artistic license the creative geniuses discard the very thing that intellectual geniuses lack. These people tend to be moody, secretive, flamboyant, cynical, and overall bipolar. It is unsure whether literary geniuses are academic or creative, and it can be assumed that the truth lies somewhere in between.

The third and undeniably most dangerous of the geniuses is that of the charismatic. These are people whom have no need for high IQ's or impressive streaks of creativity; they already have the masses at their fingertips. These people are often brilliant strategists and they have impeccable timing and often wonderful oratory skills.

The charismatic genius is craved by society, and in a vicious circle the more a society admires a certain charismatic genius the more susceptible the society is to the strategic manipulation of the charismatic genius. The most famous and truly infamous type of charismatic genius is the tyrant. Adolf Hitler and Jim Jones are good examples of tyrants. Hitler used his charisma to turn Germany into a hate filled genocide machine, killing anywhere from 10 million to 26 million people (the numbers vary by sources). Conversely Jim Jones used his charisma to start Jonestown, a settlement of about 900 people who regularly practiced 'white nights' which were essentially suicide drills. Ultimately, his charisma led 900 people to commit 'revolutionary suicide', which was nothing more than a painful death by cyanide.

Whether it was death to others or death to oneself, the power of a charismatic genius is far reaching and a thing that is driven by personal ambition. That is not to say that all charismatic geniuses use their influence for 'evil'. The term evil is used lightly because had the charismatic geniuses succeeded in achieving their end goals then they would have been revered by the world they had restructured.

History is written by the winners and it always demonizes the losers, mostly because there is no difference in the actions of both parties, thus the winners feel the need to separate themselves morally from their opponents. In war both sides brutally slaughter their opponents in the name of their respective purposes, it is not clear which side is 'good' until the other has been defeated.

And then the old adage that good triumphs evil does a neat little psychological trick and views of the masses, even those who were not involved with either party, start to integrate the word 'good' with the victors. You can be sure that had Hitler succeeded in his quest he would have written history a bit differently. He and his purpose would have been 'good' and the allies would have certainly been a bit more than 'bad'.

But it was not to be so and we can assume that it was for the better, but since we cannot be positive, there is no real way to know that the actual outcome was the 'best' outcome. It is the only outcome we have to live with, and because we think highly of ourselves and the victors of history, it must be for the best. Right?

Surely all the destruction that has come from what geniuses create is less than the progress that it has brought, for if not, then it would be a bad thing to be a genius. Indeed, if the masses did not believe that the end justifies the means, then the scientific geniuses who create weapons of war would not be an asset but a liability to society.

It must be noted that because the masses and the geniuses are on different levels of comprehension, they have different views on virtually everything. And since the masses cannot fully comprehend the works of a genius it may be said that all three categories of genius unwittingly deceive the masses around them.

Draco was highly aware of this knowledge. He was also quite aware of the fact that he was not an intellectual genius, nor was he a creative genius. If the deatheaters had been victorious it is possible that he could have been a charismatic genius, he was very skilled in the art of manipulation and strategy; consequently, history had already deemed him as 'evil' and since geniuses are for the good of society he could never be one.

He had lost the approval of the masses and thus lost the power that comes with blind admiration. And while it is true that approval can always been gained back, it can never reach its full potential once the genius has suffered the losing end, not that he was all that concerned with being a genius or controlling the masses.

No, what Draco Malfoy was concerned about was Hermione Granger. The lump of a girl that lay sleeping on his couch was a rather dangerous sort of genius. It had taken him a while to figure out what was so special about the Gryffindor princess, but in the end he solved the mystery, although it was rather worrisome conclusion.

The catalyst for his train of thought and later concern was his reaction to Pansy's comment on how things had been different had Granger been in Slytherin. He had immediately felt sick to his stomach at the idea for that seemingly minor detail would have changed the course of history.

Hermione Granger had long been hailed the brightest witch of their generation, from personal experience he had failed time and again to beat her scores in class, so he was not contesting her claim to intellectual genius. Nor was he all that concerned that she would someday create a spell that would wipe pure bloods out of existence, simply because that was not a part of her personal ambition. No, she was too bright to discriminate so blatantly, despite the fact that masses would support her actions as revolutionary and for the greater good.

From what he could tell she was sorely lacking in the creative sense. He felt that literary skills were more academic than creative because it took a brain to appreciate a literary masterpiece, something not a lot of people have, and it only took eyes and ears to appreciate paintings, sculpture, and music, something nearly every person has.

He had seen the doodles she did, and could soundly conclude that she would never create an artistic masterpiece; as far as doodles go they were rather pitiful. The part of Hermione Granger what was bothering him was her unexpected charisma.

It was so subtle that it took him months to figure out why he was even tolerating her, other than his situation of course. It puzzled him even more to learn that Pansy had devoted herself emotionally to a girl who had been their rival for six and a half years.

None of it made sense until he realized that he was unconsciously pulled to the curly haired girl, and it finally clicked. He had mentally kicked himself repeatedly upon his discovery. He spent his entire life growing up around 'evil' but charismatic people, and yet he could not recognize it for what it was when it came to Hermione Granger.

At first he wondered if perhaps she was just more charismatic than his previous acquaintances and was better at manipulation, but he nixed that idea and replaced it with the conclusion that he, and the rest of society, had been mentally conditioned to attribute charismatic manipulation to people of questionable purposes. Nothing about Hermione Granger's purposes had ever really been questionable morally, logically perhaps, but morally—never.

And therein lay her power.

Her impressive intellect made people admire her, or envy her, depending on the person. But it was her charisma that made her so damn likable, and because she only displayed ambitions of helping others achieve _their_ ambitions, the word manipulation never even crossed their minds.

Like everything in the world there are positive and negatives to all actions. Manipulation just so happens to have a bad reputation and so the idea that it could lead to a positive end result is not something people are comfortable with.

And indeed, Draco was having issues comprehending the woman that had become such an integral part of his life. As mentioned before, he was notorious control freak and not understanding something meant not being able to control it, something he highly disliked.

Shortly after meeting with Pansy they had begun to spend more time together for purely academic reasons at first. She was helping him with his wandless magic, and occasionally with some school work that dealt with muggle ideas and traditions he was not accustomed to.

He was not all that pleased at the fact that he needed her help, but he consoled himself with the fact that she was essentially tutoring him, something that translated into her serving him. Keep in mind he was born and raised as a pureblood, and with that came tradition and status, all pureblooded children had personal tutors. So in the end he was quite pleased at the idea of Hermione Granger, the brightest witch their generation had ever seen, was _his_ tutor. He just had to do some mental gymnastics to make it acceptable.

He had been improving steadily with his wandless magic, it was still verbal at this stage, but he could do simple charms that greatly improved his everyday life. He had been surprised to learn that it was nearly impossible to perform curses, jinxes, and offensive spells wandless. The few wandless spells that could be used in a duel were purely defensive. But for the most part wandless magic used charms.

When he questioned Granger about how she got around that during the final battle she had given him a rather silly smile and said that she never actually did harm to any death eaters. She used 'expelliarmus' on the majority and physically snapped their wands, leaving them flustered and essentially harmless. Magical folks never thought to bring physical weapons like knives or guns.

She had laughed at the look he had given her. Only Granger could pull off such a ridiculous stunt, her and perhaps Potter or Weasley, it was a very Gryffindor trait after all. Leave it to them to achieve such a grand action through ridiculous means.

"The point of nonverbal wandless magic is not to impose your power on others; it is to manipulate the situation so that intimidation tactics evoke extreme emotions in your opponents. It is all about frazzling their mental abilities to react logically and making yourself seem more dangerous than you really are. If they ever picked up a book on wandless magic they would know that it is impossible to curse someone with it and it is severely limited in its range of damaging spells." Her voice echoed in his thoughts.

She had told him that after he expressed his rather sarcastic concern about all the evil things the muggle immersion committee would accuse him of when they learned about her teaching him this.

Her use of the word 'manipulate' had triggered something in his brain, which in turn coupled with Pansy's previous comment, and eventually formed his current thesis that Hermione Granger was both an intellectual genius and a charismatic one as well.

Which meant that she was flat out dangerous.

He drew his silvery eyes away from the object of his contemplation and towards the clock that hung on his wall. She would be waking up from her nap soon and if she did not have coffee she was awfully fussy and snappy.

He heaved a heavy sigh and removed himself from his seat at his kitchen table, sending a brief scornful look at his unfinished homework. Damn girl had distracted his thoughts, and now he was going get a cup of coffee for her, more because it was in his best interest and less because he wanted to be nice.

But still, oh how the mighty have fallen.

He was not pleased, but he had to admit, preferably only under pain of torture, that they were actually something akin to friends at the very most, and companions at the very least. Roughly three months had passed since the day Granger had reunited Pansy and him. He was disgruntled that he spent time with Granger nearly every day after her office hours ended, but whether it was from the company or his comfort with the company he was unwilling to decide.

She would show up at his flat shortly after she was finished with school and they would work on his magic for a bit and then she would go sit on his couch and read for another little bit before falling asleep for 50 minutes exactly. Why 50, he had no idea, but 50 it was.

After that she would wake up, have a cup of coffee, turn on some music, and make them dinner. After that she would go home and the next day it would start all over again. It had taken a month or so for the routine to develop, but it had been firmly in place for two months now. It was familiar.

Despite how domestic it was they did not talk often, or if they did it was not about them. They had had many rather heated debates over books and the philosophies related to the theme, which did reveal a lot about themselves, but they mutually avoided anything that would bring about an awkward heart to heart. And even their debates were more like fights than a peaceful conversation.

But that was to be expected, he doubted that they would ever be able to hold a friendly conversation for long before they began bickering, it was how they interacted with each other from day one, and it would be how they interacted with each other till the day they parted. Neither seemed bothered by it.

Turning his thoughts neutral he focused on getting her and himself a cup of coffee, not that it took much concentration, he was just sick of thinking about her. He always spent the time she took napping thinking about her, mostly because it was the only time he could blatantly stare at her while he pondered the person that was Granger. But that time was almost over and he did not want to accidentally give her any looks that would tip her off to what he was thinking. He was still very much a man of secrecy.

He carried a cup in each hand the short distance to his coffee table and set one down for her, keeping hold of the one for him. Merlin bless the culture that propagated coffee, he was fairly positive that without the aid of coffee the majority of the world would be destroyed by pissy Americans, he was told that they ran off the wonderful drink. He had to admit he was a bit addicted as well, but he was still rather partial to a good cup of tea.

So even if all the coffee beans in the world ran out, he would be okay, which was good. Now if all the coffee beans plants _and_ all the tea plants in the world shriveled up and died, well, that would probably be the start of Armageddon. He could not think of a country that did not depend heavily on at least one of the liquids.

His thoughts of world domination through vertical integration of the two plants were put on hold as the lump on his couch started to stir, 50 minutes on the dot, what a timely girl.

"Have a good nap?" He asked, more out of habit than curiosity. His silver eyes surveyed her rumpled appearance as she stood and stretched. It was another quirk of hers; every time she woke up she would stretch in a very cat like manner. Granted he had not seen her when she woke up in the morning after an actual night's sleep, but he assumed she stretched then as well. It would be rather odd if she only stretched after naps, don't you think?

After thoroughly popping all the bones in her back she gave him a content smile before picking up the coffee cup and taking a sip. "Mhmm, no dreams. What would you like for dinner?"

A smirk flitted on Draco's handsome face. "Chicken Fettuccine." Was his rather amused response. Not only was she his tutor, but she was his cook as well. What a charmed life he lived.

She gave him a knowing look before wandering off to the kitchen, mumbling 'addict' while she went. Granger's Chicken Fettuccine had quickly become his favorite dinner food. He had always loved pasta, from the day he could eat solid food, or so his mother used to tell him.

Perhaps it was because of the person cooking it or perhaps it was because it was done the muggle way, but he would wager half of his account at Gringots that her version was more delectable than that of the house elves. A statement that bordered on blasphemy, but held some water.

And so the night continued much that way they expected it too. Draco flicked his hand towards his cheap little radio, eliciting the sweet sounds of Bach, smiling inwardly at his small achievement, before sitting at the table and actually doing some of his work while Hermione cooked dinner in the kitchen. Once she was finished cooking he would clear the table of his books and they would sit and eat, listening to the songs on the radio. They had it set on a station that played mostly classical music with the occasional night of jazz.

Not only did the classical music calm both of them, but Draco just flat out did not understand much of the stuff referenced in muggle music, he had never been a fan of modern wizarding music, much less the modern muggle music. Hermione did not mind either way, she had enough knowledge of both worlds to be content with whatever he chose.

She was not a bit surprised when he chose classical, for some odd reason it fit in perfectly with his aristocratic upbringing. The idea of Draco Malfoy listening to the Weird Sisters was a bit beyond laughable.

And so the couple sat in quiet companionship as the soothing sounds of Bach's Cello Suite washed over them and the warmth of a delicious meal filled them. All things considered this was not a bad life to live Draco thought. He had a pretty girl to keep him company and feed him, but he did not have to put up with the emotions that came with being involved with someone.

Granted he also did not get any sex, but hey, beggars cannot be choosers. Besides there is no sex without emotional involvement of some measure, he was content to sacrifice sex in exchange for that. Not that he often thought of Granger in that way, he just happened to notice that she was a very shapely girl. Mostly when she would stretch, it was rather hard to miss at times like that.

Something must have leaked into his eyes because Hermione gave him an odd look before asking "Something wrong?" and letting her eyes travel quickly over his person, as if to find the source of his odd look. Too bad she was not in front of a mirror.

While her eyes scanned him she could not help but admire him. He always had been handsome, if a bit ugly when being cruel. She was rather appreciative that she could openly look at him without being verbally attacked for being a mudblood. The way she looked at him was akin to the look an art admirer would give a painting. She would not mind looking at him for days, but she never had any intention of touching.

She knew that quite like if she touched a precious work of art the oil from her skin would ruin it; the dirt of her being a mudblood would quite likely transform his face from content perfection to a twisted ugly mask of disgust.

After her perusal of his person her pretty brown eyes came to rest on his silver ones, which still held an odd quality to them while he stared at her.

"Just thinking." was his distracted reply as the look in his eyes retreated and was replaced with his normal look of alert boredom. A knowing look entered her toffee colored eyes as she gave a small "Ah." and went back to eating.

And see that right there is why Draco liked spending time with Hermione Granger. She was observant but not prying, which was odd because she was a know-it-all normally. But when it came to him she never questioned his actions or responses. Pansy, bless her, would have asked him what he was thinking and not let it drop until he told her or said something insulting towards her.

But not Granger. Granger let him keep his secrecy, something he appreciated greatly. The paranoid part of him insisted it was because she already knew his secrets, which was a tad improbable considering she had only been back in his life for about five months. That was an awfully short time to learn all of his secrets, considering the type of life he previously led.

Another part suggested she did not care, but that was a very small part of him that he did not like to listen to. Everybody wants to be cared about.

The biggest part of him insisted that she was just being the nice, empathetic person she was. It was that damn charisma again, allowing him to achieve his wish of secrecy through her. His conspiracy thoughts on her being a charismatic genius were interrupted as a knock on his door sounded solidly through the flat.

They exchanged looks of apprehension as Hermione stood to get the door. Nobody but she and the ministry knew where he lived since he was not social with his peers. In fact they both subconsciously assumed that Hermione would be the only person to visit him during his time in the muggle world.

She summoned her wand as she walked quietly towards the door. It was not beyond the realm of possibilities that someone would track Draco down to hurt him. There were many upset people who blamed the death of their loved ones on people like Malfoy, and those already upset people were rather enraged when they heard he would get a second chance at life while their loved ones lay rotting in the earth.

She stood on her tippy-toes and looked through the peek hole before drawing back startled and throwing the door open. Surprising both Draco and the man on the other side who took a step back from the sudden movement.

"Harry!" She exclaimed before promptly bursting into tears and throwing herself at the still startled aruror who caught her more out of habit than conscious ability.

* * *

A couple hours earlier found Harry Potter standing in front of an imposing house that belonged to Andre and Pansy. He gathered all of his Gryffindor courage and knocked on the cherry wood door. There was a few seconds of silence before he heard some rustling and a woman yelling "coming".

After the locks had been undone the door opened to reveal a mature Pansy standing in a fetching blue dress looking quite normal and not like a Slytherin at all. "Hello, Mr. Potter. Is there anything I can do for you?" She asked giving him a queer look.

It's not every day that Harry Potter shows up at your door, unexpected at that. He had aged well, his green eyes held confusion but still, he was rather handsome with his ruffled black hair and expensive robes. Yes, time had been kind to him.

"You don't have a house elf?" Was his response, causing a look to cross his face that clearly stated that is not was he meant to say.

Pansy laughed lightly, he seemed just as surprised that he was visiting her as she was. "You know Hermione would pitch a fit if I kept a house elf around. And you know how scary she can be." She joked lightly.

At the mention of his former friend he bit his lip, a sign of guilt no doubt. Had she been anybody else she might have felt bad that she had so blatantly rubbed in the fact that she was friends with Hermione while he was not, but she was Pansy. And though she may not look it she was still a Slytherin at heart, what did she care if he felt guilty?

"Er, right. Speaking of 'Mione, do you happen to know where I can find her? It's important." His voice was calm, but his shifting gave away his discomfort.

Pansy's eyes narrowed in suspicion as she decided how to respond. "Perhaps, but first. Let's have tea." She said slowly, sending the boy who lived an evil smile. As ridiculous as it sounds seeing some form of Slytherin traits appear in the girl actually calmed his nerves a bit.

He could handle evil and conniving from a Slytherin, nice and accommodating was something he was wholly untrained for. So with a resolved spirit he followed his former enemy into her house, the cherry wood door swinging shut soundly behind him.

He found himself seated across from Pansy in her kitchen holding a cup of warm tea. The silence was uncomfortable, but it did not seem to bother her, if he did not know better, he would say she was prolonging it. Then again she was a Slytherin, so it was very probable.

"What do you need with Hermione?" She asked casually, a dark look in her eyes.

Harry cocked an eyebrow at the former Slytherin, she apparently felt comfortable enough with Hermione to call her by her first name.

"I was hoping to talk to her. You are the last person she had contact with in the wizarding world, I figured you would know better than I where to find her."

Her face took on a thoughtful look. "What do you need to talk to her about?"

Inwardly he sighed; he had been hoping to just get her address and go. "Ron's wedding, she said she would not be attending, but gave no reason." He said stiffly. Honestly if he did not need information from her he would have said something rude.

A vindictive smile twisted her plump lips up. "And you aren't willing to let it rest are you?"

Annoyed green eyes stared heatedly at her smug blue ones. "No. I think after everything we have been through Ron at least deserves a reason. We spent six bloody years protecting each other with our lives, and then we make one bloody mistake and it's all over. If she is still feels like we are unworthy of her friendship after we have given her space for seven years then she is going to bloody well tell me to my face." He finished, practically snarling.

Pansy could not help but roll her eyes; Gryffindor's were always so dramatic. "Keep your pants on Potter, I know where she is and I know why she's not going." She drawled, mildly scoffing at his antics.

"So you've kept in touch with her?" He asked hopefully, forgetting his anger momentarily.

"Mhmm, we get together every month and have coffee." She said distractedly, mentally trying to find the best way to tell him why his former friend declined the invite.

She bit her lip, torn between just flat out telling him or being nicer about it. Hermione would want her to be nicer, but she still wanted to be mean. Oh the internal wars we wage. "I am going to tell you why she's not going and please do not over react. I am sure you can go find her and convince her otherwise, just please do not be loud, my baby is down for her nap." She spoke quickly and somewhat rambled; she was the uncomfortable one now.

"Okay." He responded hesitantly. The idea of Pansy having a kid was odd to him, but he supposed she looked like a mother.

"The reason she's not going is because of Draco Malfoy." At the mention of his name and Harry's eye flashed and he sat up ramrod straight, but did not interrupt. "She has to watch him while he's in the muggle immersion program and since he is not allowed back in contact with the wizarding world until he passes she feels like she would be skirting her duties."

Harry calmed at bit as the girl in front of him spoke quickly. "Or at least that is what she told me, but I honestly think she is just afraid to be back in the wizarding world and is using that as an excuse. Draco's been behaving so it's not like he really needs watched. She does not want to go to the wedding alone and won't take me because, well, that would just be awkward and she can't take him so she does not want to go."

She finished taking a deep breath, feeling relieved that it was all out. Hard part over, right?

"I see..." Harry said thoughtfully. "So I assume since this is Hermione we are talking about, she has befriended Malfoy?" His tone was not pleased but it did not sound like he was going to go and punch the poor kid.

Pansy's blue eyes shifted away from his pressing green ones as she bit her lip again. "You could say that."

"She's not dating him is she?' He asked, sounding scandalized.

Not meeting his eyes she shifted in her seat before shrugging. "No. Not yet anyway." was her reply.

A shiver went down Harry's back and his eyes narrowed in calculation. "What do you mean 'not yet'?" He asked menacingly.

Blue eyes briefly connected with green before darting away again. "I mean, they are not dating yet, but given sometime I think it's inevitable really. They spend every day together and are pretty much isolated from both the muggle and wizarding world. That and they are of the opposite sex so really they don't stand a chance." She rambled still not looking at him.

Harry leaned back in his chair, his green eyes still narrowed in thought. It made sense, but he did not like it. "Where can I find Hermione?" he was ready to be done with this conversation.

"It's only two right now, so she will still be teaching. From about four to nine you can find her at Draco's, after that she's at her house. I'll write the addresses down for you." She said neutrally. Using her wand she summoned a piece of paper and a pen.

"Hermione's a teacher?" He asked, not at all shocked by that, but by the fact that he hadn't given a thought to what she would be doing to support herself in the muggle world.

"Mhmm, at Oxford University as their Literature teacher, which is why she is watching Draco, since he chose that degree." She answered distractedly as she wrote down two addresses.

Harry did not answer, he had many questions but he did not want to hear the answers from Pansy, he wanted to hear them from Hermione.

After she handed him the paper he thanked her and told her he would find his own way out. Had he bothered to turn around he would have seen a conniving smile on Pansy's face.

Potter was worried about Hermione and Draco dating, and now he was going to go rushing over and make sure they weren't, but by doing that and being so blatant he would be planting the idea in their heads even more.

People were so easy to manipulate.

* * *

Back in the present Harry regained his senses and hugged Hermione tightly, he had missed his friend terribly. It felt good to have her back in his arms. After a few moments she calmed down and stopped her sniffling.

"I never thought I would see you again." She said truthfully, her head still buried in his shoulder. The sound of someone clearing their throat had Hermione pulling out of his embrace and blushing prettily as she glanced back at Draco who was now standing in his doorway giving the two a frown.

"Malfoy." Harry greeted stiffly. Silver eyes flickered to green as he gave a brief nod of acknowledgement.

"You guys are letting the heat out." was all he said before turning and walking back to his dinner. Harry cast Hermione a puzzled look but all she did was shrug and smile at him before walking back into the flat.

It was the weirdest invite to come in Harry had ever received. But then again it was Malfoy; he was always an odd one.

Shrugging as well he followed the curly haired girl into the flat and shut the door behind him. The scene that greeted him was disturbing to say the least. Draco was sitting at the table looking expectantly at Hermione. It took Harry a few moments to realize that he was waiting for her to sit back down so they could continue their dinner.

Hermione must have known this as well because she cast him an apologetic look before asking Harry. "Would you like to join us for dinner, I made chicken fettuccine?"

"Sure, it's been a while since I've had your food." He said awkwardly. This was not how he envisioned the confrontation going; he expected more, well, confrontation, obviously. This was not that, this was more like he was visiting an old friend while she and her husband had dinner.

And that is why it was disturbing. Harry could clearly see what Pansy was talking about. Hermione was obviously in tune with Draco and Draco was much more compliant that Harry would have thought, more for Hermione's sake than his own he figured.

This was bad.

With a slightly depressed look on his face he went and sat down next to Malfoy. He did not have much of a choice considering the table only sat four and Hermione was sitting across from Draco.

Silver eyes glanced briefly at the man who just sat next to him. Damn Potter had to come and interrupt his dinner, his favorite dinner. And his manners would not let him continue to eat until Hermione was back, it would be entirely too rude for him to do so. His poor mother would come back from the dead and smack him for being so rude.

Harry watched as Malfoy's eyes darted back to Hermione as he watched her dish up Harry's plate and return to the table. Hermione was blissfully unaware of Harry's thoughts, but acutely aware that she was holding up Draco's dinner. The man was not pleasant when his routine was interrupted.

"Here you go Harry." Hermione said lightly, setting his plate and silverware down before returning to her seat across from Draco and next to Harry. Harry watched as Hermione got situated, the moment she picked her fork up he saw Draco pick his up with a dark glare and mutter something that sounded suspiciously like 'finally' before he began eating.

Hermione just rolled her eyes and shot Harry a smile before eating her dinner as well. After a few moments of silent eating she finished, Draco still had a bit of food left so he continued and Harry had made it half way through the delicious dinner. She turned her attention to her estranged friend.

"What brings to you here? It's been forever." Her voice was happy and there was a light in her eyes that usually was missing. None of this escaped Draco's notice, in fact it was the only reason he had not tossed Potter out. The damn fool made _his_ fool happy, and he was not in the mood to upset her tonight.

Harry blinked in surprise; Hermione was acting like everything was water under the bridge, like she had not fled from their friendship and hid in the muggle world for seven years. "I'm here to ask why you aren't going to Ron's wedding." He said flatly.

Might as well be straight forward.

Draco's head popped up in surprise and he gave Hermione a suspicious narrow eyed stare. He had assumed that she would go, it was not in keeping with her personality to decline Weasley's request.

Hermione felt Harry and Draco's eyes on her as she glanced guiltily at the table. "Oh. That." She said quietly.

Had she bothered to look up she would have seen mirror expressions of disbelief on her dinner companions faces. "Yeah. That." was all Harry replied.

"Well, you see I can't leave the muggle world. I have to stay here until Draco has finished his program." She muttered still not looking up. Harry gave her a dubious look while Malfoy looked annoyed.

"Uh uh. You are not pinning this on me. There is no way in Hell I am going to let Potter and Weasley add this to their list of things to kill me for." Draco said resolutely, setting his fork down and giving Hermione a very intimidating stare. "Understood?"

When he got no response his stare intensified. "Potter? Granger? Are we understood?" He got a nod from Potter but Granger was still not cooperating. "I can behave myself for one day Hermione. The world won't end if I am left unattended in the muggle world. I'm sure the ministry could arrange for someone else to watch me that day. It's not like I plan on going anywhere." Draco reasoned with Hermione.

He ignored the bug eyed look he was getting from Potter and focused solely on Granger. He did not have time for Potter to have a conniption fit because he used Hermione's first name, he should understand it was used out of persuasion tactics and not out of endearment.

But that was only partially what Harry was freaking out over. Not only had Malfoy used Hermione's first name, but he was try to reason her into going. He was on Harry's side. Which was bizarre and not something Harry was sure he could handle at this moment.

He had expected a fight; a verbal fight with Hermione and a possible physical fight with Draco. He did not expect to be invited to dinner, nor was he prepared for the content atmosphere that hung in Malfoy's flat. It felt like a home that was well lived in by people who cared about each other.

And the fact that Malfoy had yet to insult _anyone_, well, Harry was just beside himself.

"But...I don't want to go alone." Hermione said quietly, still staring at the table. Draco could not help it; he rolled his eyes at her. What a girl.

"You won't have to go alone. Potter will go with you, right?" He reasoned, giving Harry a look that said he better say yes. Harry grimaced and shook his head 'no'. "Can't. I'm the best man."

"See, I'd have to go alone." Hermione said, almost whining. Draco just heaved a sigh before trudging forward.

"No you don't. I'm sure you can take Pansy or Andre. Heck I bet if you could even convince Blaise or Theo to go with you." Draco was grasping at straws, but honestly, he did not want to be blamed for her not going and he did not want to have to deal with her if she did not go. She would be all mopey and he would have to comfort her which was something he was _not_ comfortable with.

Deep green eyes watched the interaction thoughtfully. It would appear that Malfoy had matured a bit and was perhaps not entirely evil. When he was given the second chance Harry had been against it all the way, scum like Malfoy did not deserve to live after all the people they had killed.

But it seemed that Malfoy had changed, at least a bit. He had never been this civil in Hogwarts.

"I don't want to go with them." Hermione said childishly, finally looking up, and giving Draco a pout.

Draco gave a defeated sigh; did she have to be difficult? "Who do you want to go with Hermione?" He asked patiently, as though he was speaking to a child. Harry already knew the answer and was not at all surprised when she responded.

"I want to go with you." She said quietly, dropping her eyes back to the table. Harry had to stop from laughing at the look on Malfoy's face. He sputtered a moment before he was able to respond.

"Don't play games with me Granger. You are only saying that because you know I _can't _go. Not only am I banned from the wizarding world but there is no way in hell the Weasley's would let me anywhere near the wedding." He spat angrily. Harry nodded his head in silent agreement but Hermione shook hers in disagreement.

"That's not true; I would not use you like that." She said sounding hurt that he would even suggest such a thing. Malfoy just gave her a disbelieving stare.

"Lying is unbecoming. You are afraid of returning to the wizarding world for whatever reason, and that's all bloody well and fine, but you can't blame it on me." He said calmly but resolutely giving Hermione a penetrating stare.

"I am not afraid! Nor am I lying!" Hermione sputtered angrily, shooting out of her chair and leaning across the table. Harry just sat silently and watched, it was all very entertaining to say the least, almost like the times at Hogwarts but much less vindictive.

"Yes. You are!" He spat back, losing his cool and rising out of his chair to lean across the table so he could yell at her face to face, like a man.

"You are afraid to return to the people and society you shunned seven years ago. You are afraid that they will treat you differently. You are afraid they will fear your wandless magic. You are afraid that they won't like you anymore. But most of all you are afraid of apologizing and saying that you were wrong to leave, that you were a coward to leave." He finished, his silver grey eyes bearing into her brown ones.

She blinked blankly at him as silence engulfed the room. "Is that why I don't want to go back?" She asked confused, pushing off of the table and plopping down into her seat, a puzzled look on her face as she stared contemplatively at her empty plate. It would appear that she had not entertained that idea.

Draco just gave Hermione a look that Harry could not decipher and then did something that Harry never thought he would see. Draco Malfoy manually picked up his and her empty plates and carried them to the kitchen sink, after dropping them off he grabbed a bottle wine and three wine glasses before returning to the table.

He then proceeded to pour Hermione a glass and as he handed it to her he responded. "Yes. The great Hermione Granger, smartest witch of our generation, was wrong." He almost sounded like he was teasing her. And from the small smile she shot Malfoy, Harry gathered that he was.

Not only did a Malfoy just clean up after himself the muggle way, he was openly teasing Hermione in a friendly way.

"I'm not good at admitting I am wrong." She said seriously, glancing between the two men. Draco just cocked an eyebrow at her and Harry gave her a knowing smile.

"So does that mean you will come?" Harry asked hopefully. His life would be infinitely better if he could have Hermione back in it, and this was the first step.

"I will go if you can find a way for Draco to come with me." She said seriously. The hopefulness Harry felt quickly fell.

"Bloody hell Hermione. Why do you want me to come? It's not like these people will be happy to see me." Draco complained. Silently Harry agreed with him, but he kept it to himself.

"Because if I have to do something that terrifies me I want someone familiar there with me." She explained calmly. Draco opened his mouth to protest but she cut him off.

"And don't you dare say you're not familiar to me. We spend a minimum of five hours a night together, I sleep on your couch and make you dinner every day, you make me coffee and do the dishes every night. I know the majority of your quirks and what you favor and don't. I know you don't like to admit it but Draco Malfoy we are practically friends." She finished huffily, much to Harry's amusement.

"I know we are practically friends you silly twit, but how is me knowing that you stretch like a cat after every nap going to help you face your fears? How is me knowing that if you don't sleep for 50 minutes exactly you turn into a grumpy shrew going to help _us_ not get thrown out of town. I hate to say it but when it comes to the wedding you would be better off not bringing me with you." He finished annoyed.

"I can't believe I'm saying this but, I agree with Malfoy." Harry put in, not meeting the other man's eyes.

"Well that is fine and dandy but those are my terms. Either we both go or no one goes. Draco will go simply because he does not want to be blamed for me not going so all you have to do is convince the ministry and Ron to let him come." Hermione said resolutely with her arms crossed.

"Oh yes, like that will be easy." Harry responded sarcastically.

"The ministry shouldn't be hard, you are Harry Potter, they _adore_ you." Malfoy muttered, emphasizing the adore.

"And I am sure that Weasley would put up with Voldemort himself if he could see Granger again. So honestly Potter, you being you has the job half done and Hermione being Hermione has the other part. All I have to do is show up, be quiet, and not get killed. Hermione has to show up, apologize, and be the cute little thing she is and everyone will forgive her. Problem solved, now let's drink." He finished raising his glass in the air. He could only spend a certain amount of time sober around Potter after all.

His other two companions shared a look of amusement before toasting their glasses and downing the wine. A few glasses later, because honestly, Draco was not about to stay sober after admitting that he was almost friends with Granger, found Hermione feeling a bit better.

"You called me cute." She giggled, taking another sip of her wine. It was not often that the Slytherin complimented her and she was not about to let him get away with it without a little harassment.

Draco just ignored her teasing and focused on his wine, come hell or high water he was going to get smashed tonight. And from the looks of it his companions had the same idea. Granger appeared to be a light weight and it would not be far off the mark to say she was well on her way to being thoroughly pissed.

Potter held his liquid a bit better. He was nowhere close to drunk, but he was quite far from being sober. He was in the happy middle ground where the wine makes you relax and it would seem that there is nothing wrong in the world. That being said he was in quite high spirits.

"It's true mate, you called her cute." Potter said giving Draco a goofy smile when the Slytherin shot him a dark glare.

"And?" was the only response they got from the pale man.

"It means you think I'm cute." Hermione said happily, dangerously close to sloshing her wine out of its crystal confines. Harry just nodded his head vigorously in agreement.

"No. It means I have eyes." Draco responded matter-a-factly. He was feeling a bit of a buzz, which was relaxing him a bit, but even fully sedated he would be snarky. Can't change a cheetah's spots.

"Nu uh, it means you think I'm pretty." Hermione sang before downing the rest of her wine. Glass three out of the way, on to glass four!

"Yes, you are pretty, Potter is handsome, and I am sexy. Now what?" Draco shot back, feeling confident that his response would shut her up, never mind the fact that he had just hit on Potter. But all it did was make her and Potter bust up laughing.

"I never knew you felt that way about me Malfoy." Potter teased back, clearly under the influence of cheap wine.

"Oh yes, for years now. How could I not with those eyes?" Draco drawled sarcastically wondering why he decided that drinking with two former Gryffindor's would be acceptable behavior.

Harry just gave him a queer look before smiling goofily again. Hermione donned a serious face as she looked between the two men.

"I don't know, I think you have prettier eyes Draco. They're all silvery and mysterious. Harry's are nice, but a lot of people have green eyes. You're the only one I know that has your eyes." She said with a hiccup at the end.

"Hey!" Harry protested. "'Mione, you're supposed to think I look better, we've been friends longer." He pouted childishly. Draco let out a short laugh.

"Hah, I am finally better than you at something Potter. It's only taken fourteen years, eh?" Okay, so perhaps the wine was working quicker than expected, Draco hadn't drunk in a while and it would appear his tolerance has been lowered.

"Pft, she's only saying that because she fancies you. She can't fancy me, I'm her friend." Harry said as confidently as only a drunk can.

"I don't fancy him Harry." Hermione protested from her spot on the table where she rested her head, she was getting quite sleepy.

"See she doesn't fancy me. Granger deserves a better man than me anyway." He slurred sounding almost sad, completely unaware of the fact that he had simultaneously complimented Hermione and put himself down.

"I think I've had too much to drink, I just heard you say that you're not good enough for Hermione. Which is true, but you don't say things like that. You're a Malfoy, arrogant and the best there is." Harry slurred back, point a wobbly finger at the other man.

"I think I've had too much to drink because I did just say that. Must be drunk." Draco replied happily, he had accomplished his goal; he was drunk as a skunk and enjoying it.

"'Sides it's true, nobody wants to be a Malfoy, not after the stuff my father dragged our name through. I doubt I'll ever find a wife, they'll all think I'm just like the bastard. He killed my mum you know? Right bastard he was, but he's dead now." Draco rambled drunkenly, not realizing that he was opening up to Harry Potter. Harry on the other hand was not as drunk as Draco, having stopped drinking after three glasses while Malfoy kept going.

Though, all things considered, Malfoy had more to drink about.

"S'not true, you'll find a pretty wife someday. You're not that bad." Hermione mumbled somewhat incoherently, head still resting on the table. Draco just laughed bitterly.

"S'unlikely Hermione, No girl in her right mind would marry me. If I was a girl I wouldn't marry me." He said self mockingly. Harry nodded his head sagely in agreement, he couldn't think of any girl who would want to marry the shamed Slytherin.

"I'd marry you, I think you're pretty." She said lifting her head to look him in the eye, giving him a goofy smile. Harry's eyes widened in shock, the alcohol momentarilly wearing off, as he mentally tried to figure out how to change the direction of the conversation. The last thing he needed was the two getting together. Hermione deserved better.

"But see, you're not in your right mind, you've drunk yourself silly." Draco shot back smiling grimly. Harry breathed a silent sigh of relief; glad for once that Malfoy was a cold calculating Slytherin, even while drunk.

"Oh." Was her reply as she lay her head back down. "Either way I like you, I think you're nice." She mumbled drunkenly to the table.

A loud boisterous laugh filled the room and the two Gryffindors could only stare at the mirthful Slytherin. It was an odd sight; they had never seen Malfoy actually laugh. Hermione found it rather charming and alluring and Harry just found it odd that the man before him actually had that part of his vocal cords; he always thought it was not a part of the Slytherin anatomy.

"You have had _way_ too much to drink if you think I am nice 'Mione." Draco slurred happily, giving the drunken girl across from him a rather attractive smile. He did not seem to notice he had adopted Harry's nickname for her, but the other two did. Hermione just smiled drunkenly back at him, quite happy with life and feeling all warm inside.

Harry, still slightly buzzed, wondered what it would have been like had the man before him been anybody but a Malfoy. He probably would have turned out to be an okay fellow Harry concluded; too bad he was a Malfoy, rotten bunch the lot of them.

"I'm tired and too drunk to aparate home." Hermione complained, dangerously close to drooling on the table. If Harry had been to her house before he could have offered to aparate her home, but as it were, he only had the address and had never been there before, since he was of little help he stayed quite.

"Go sleep on the couch." The Slytherin suggested closing his eyes and letting his head loll back. It seemed like an obvious answer to him. But Hermione was a difficult person.

"I don't wanna sleep there. Tha's where I nap. I can't sleep where I nap." She protested nonsensically. Harry had to scrunch his face in concentration to even understand what she was saying, but it was perhaps because he was sobering quickly that he was losing the ability to understand drunken speech. Lucky for all parties involved Draco was still sloshed and very fluent in drunken speech.

"That makes no sense you silly girl. Napping is sleeping in smaller quantities." He shot back, trying to reason with the drunken girl named Hermione. Harry thought Draco had a point, but Hermione was beyond the rules of logic.

"Nope. Not the same. I nap on couches and sleep in beds, tha's how it works." She said shaking her head for emphasis, but really all it did was make her dizzy. Harry just cocked an eye brow in amusement, he had never seen Hermione drunk before, and she was quite entertaining.

"Then go sleep in mine and I'll take the couch. Potter can have the floor if he wants it." Draco compromised; eyes still closed sounding half asleep himself.

"I don't think that's necessary, I can make it home okay." He said, politely declining the generous offer of sleeping on the floor.

"You don't 'ave to sleep on the couch, there's 'nough room in the bed." Hermione said lifting her head and preparing to stumble from the table to the bedroom, taking no notice to the slight panic that crossed her Gryffindor friends face.

"Nope, not allowed. Only married people can sleep in the same bed. It's the rules." He slurred sitting forward to lay his head down on the table. Harry's heart rate calmed a bit thinking that the idea of them spending the night together drunken in the same bed had been avoided. It sure was stressful to be the only mildly sober person around, he felt like he needed back up.

"I already said I'd marry you." She pointed out drunkenly, giving Harry another small heart attack. They sure weren't making this easy, sweet merlin, how did getting drunk ever sound like a good idea.

"Maybe latter 'Mione." He mumbled quietly, a few strands of platinum hair falling into his face. A couple moments later Harry could detect a small snore from the former Slytherin. It would appear that Draco was going to be sleeping on the table instead of the couch.

Hermione nodded resolutely. "I'mma holds you to that." She told the sleeping man stubbornly before stumbling to his bedroom, not bothering to shut the door.

Harry heard a thud as she fell onto the bed and moments later another soft snore was heard from her general vicinity. He briefly wondered if all drunken people snored in their sleep or if the two did that normally.

After a few moments of nonsensically contemplations he realized that he was the only one left awake, which was awkward. He did not really want to go home to Ginny smelling like a wino, but he was sure that once he explained she would not be too mad.

It was not until he attempted to stand that he realized he was a bit more drunk than he previously thought. The ground simply would not hold still. Perhaps sleeping on the couch would be the safest bet, now all he had to do was get there.

A couple of stumbles later and the great Harry Potter had managed to traverse the treacherous distance from the table to the couch, flopping heavily onto the worn surface he heaved a sigh of relief, finding himself rather tired.

Within moments he joined his two companions in a drunken slumber. At some point in the night he recalled hearing a painful sounding thud and a man groan, but it was not enough to rouse him. Still slightly drunk Draco had fallen out of his seat after trying to resituate himself in his sleep.

Groaning he lifted himself from the floor glancing around confused as to why he would be sleeping at the table. Unable to recall a plausible reason he stood on wobbly legs before stumbling towards his bedroom, shutting off the lights as he went, completely oblivious to the two other live forms that occupied his flat.

The night soon turned peaceful again as the three slumbered.

It was not until the morning light that Harry Potter was rudely torn from his sleep by a feminine shriek and a man shouting.

"Bloody hell Granger, what are you doing in my bed!" Malfoy yelled, quite startled to wake up to screaming girl who he had apparently been snuggling against. It would seem that she was startled enough to scream once she realized who she was being held by.

The two quickly scrambled out of the bed, both relived to realize they were fully dressed. "Oh god, my head." She groaned, having moved too quickly. She swayed dangerously before two strong hands steadied her.

"Go sit at the table, I'll make coffee." He said gruffly, kind in his mannerisms but voice rough from sleep. She nodded before wincing at the action.

The two trudged towards the table and the kitchen, but a movement caught Draco's eye. There on his couch looking very disgruntled was one Harry Potter.

"Bloody hell, I've been invaded by Gryffindors." He grumbled to himself before deciding that coffee was more important that Potter.

Harry, who did not have as big a hangover as Hermione soon joined her at the table, both a bit disoriented. The two sat there blankly staring off into space, one willing her headache to go away, the other just trying to wake up fully.

After a moment or so the two were joined by the blonde Slytherin who came bearing gifts of coffee and cups. They drank their coffee in silence as they became more oriented. It was a rather odd phenomenon but one could hazard to say that the more Hermione remembered the brighter she blushed.

Had she really said that she would marry Draco? Sweet merlin, kill her now. Not only that but she slept in his bed, _with_ him. There was something to be said about small blessings as it appeared they did not do anything. As far as she could tell he joined her at some point in the night but only used her as a teddy bear. The worst part of it all was that she rather enjoyed being curled up against the aforementioned Slytherin. The few moments before she screamed were spent smiling dopily as she snuggled into the warm body pressed up against hers; it was not until her brain reminded her that she should not be snuggled up against anyone that she panicked

For his part Draco only remembered hazy bits of the previous night. From what he gathered Potter had showed up for dinner and Draco resorted to drinking, and his companions followed suit. From there it was nothing but blurs. He did remember falling out of the chair and wandering to his bed, he also remembered wondering why there was girl in his bed since he wasn't married but shrugged it off. He recalled thinking that if she was in his bed she must be his, or else why would she be there?

His current conclusion was that he was an idiot for drinking.

Hermione's ever increasing blush did not go unnoticed by his slate colored eyes; he hoped he had behaved himself. He could not recollect doing anything inappropriate other than wrapping himself snuggly around her. He might have buried his face in her neck, she was unexpectedly comfortable after all, but he did not think he did anything to warrant the current color of mortification on her face. Then again she did just wake up in the arms of an ex-deatheater of the worst caliber; if he looked at it from that point of view he could understand her mortification. He did not appreciate it, but he understood it.

For his part Potter just looked grumpy, he had never been a morning person, and while he was not entirely hung over he was also not entirely well. Not only was he upset that Malfoy had _somehow_ ended up with Hermione in bed, but he was not looking forward to facing Ginny's wrath at him not coming home.

He always knew Malfoy's were nothing but bad news. He also knew it was not logical to blame the pale boy for the night, but when it's early and the coffee has yet to kick in logic can go screw itself. Or at least that is how _he_ felt about it.

"What time is it?" Hermione asked quietly, pinching the bridge of her nose in a vain effort to ward off her headache.

"10, but it's also Saturday so don't spaz." Draco answered neutrally, gazing into his coffee. He did not see the other two look up at him, lost in thought as he was. Harry was perturbed by the fact that Malfoy knew Hermione well enough to know she would have a small panic attack if she thought she was late for teaching, it spoke volumes of how close the Slytherin actually was to the former Gryffindor Princess, regardless of how much the two denied it.

Hermione was staring at him thinking that she probably would not mind spending her life around him. She was by no means in love with him, and she highly doubted he felt anything romantic towards her, but she did derive quite a bit of comfort from being around him.

Would it be so bad to spend the rest of her life with him as a companion?

She did not think so.

He was rather handsome and comfortable after all. And despite his shortcomings he took very good care of her. She wondered what he would be like towards the woman he loved, he would probably make a great husband she concluded. If the way he treated her, as nothing more than a companion and almost friend, was any indication she thought that whoever he ended up with would be quite lucky. No, she did not see him turning out like his father at all. Draco was better than that, he just did not know it yet, but she would be sure to tell him. Once her bloody head stopped hurting that is.

Harry narrowed his eyes in annoyance, even when it was awkwardly quiet the two seemed to be comfortable around each other. Damn Pansy and her intuition. Harry did not want Hermione to fall for Malfoy, not only did Malfoy not deserve her, but he was positive that she would only get hurt by the cold Slytherin.

The things Draco saw in his coffee were things he knew could never be. He blamed it on being physically close to her for an extended amount of time, but his imagination was playing cruel tricks on him. It kept _implying_ things, like a relationship, which was just unrealistic. Not only was he a murderer, to top it off the men in his family did not have the best reputation when it came to women. Seriously, no woman in her right mind would marry the son of a man who killed his own wife in cold blood. And so you see his imagination was being very cruel, not only was it teasing him with images of a relationship he would never have with anyone, but the relationship was with a woman who he could never have for a whole slew of other reasons.

And so, unbeknownst to each other, they all sat there pondering the same thing, each one of them reaching different conclusions about it with varying levels of emotion.

"You did not stretch." Draco said randomly, fixing his piercing gray eyes on the girl across from him. It was such a bizarre comment that it took Hermione a moment to figure out what he was talking about. Once she did she could not help but laugh. What a peculiar man.

"I was a bit preoccupied. It's not every day that I wake up in your arms after all." Her tone was casual yet teasing and her words were a bit too personal for Harry's tastes.

"What was that about anyway? Last I remember you were asleep on the table." Harry said accusingly, to which Draco just gave him a glare.

"I was rather plastered Potter, all I remember is falling out of the chair and wondering why I was not asleep in my bed. You'll have to forgive me if I was not thinking straight." He bit back scathingly, not missing the other man's motives behind the comment. Draco knew he could not have Hermione, not that he wanted her, but either way Potter did not need to rub it in.

"Boys, boys, no need to get fussy. No harm done right?" Hermione inserted soothingly, not in the mood to deal with bickering idiots. Besides she truly did not mind, he had behaved himself, and they had both gotten a good night's sleep, which was something nightmares usually prevented for her.

"I suppose." Harry replied grudgingly, not sound a bit like he agreed. "I really should be going; Ginny's going to kill me." He added, sounding a bit worried. Draco smiled inwardly at the idea of Potter getting in trouble but did not say anything.

Hermione just gave him a sympathetic smile. "Tell her 'Hi' for me?"

He nodded his head as he stood and prepared to aparate away. He had had about all he could take of Malfoy's presence, after spending several years away from him he was unaccustomed to the other man's company. His brain kept telling him that Malfoy was a terrible person but his intuition said that he was not all that bad and overall it was a very conflicting feeling.

"I'll be back when I get some answers." Was all he said in way of parting before he was gone. Hermione blinked at the spot where he had been standing, it was almost surreal to think that he had just waltzed back into her life, but she was quite happy he had.

"Well, this coffee isn't bloody working. I'm going back to bed 'Mione. You're welcome to stay or leave." Draco said moodily glaring at his offending cup of coffee and mentally berating himself for using her nickname. He did not know what possessed him to do it, it was out of his mouth before he could stop it, and he was slightly embarrassed to be referencing her in such a familiar way. 'Mione is what her _best friends_ called her, and he did not place himself among that group.

Toffee colored eyes surveyed her handsome companion as he abandoned his spot at the table and trudged towards his bedroom, a small smile played on her lips as she watched him go. Yes, she would quite like to spend at least a bit of her life with this man.

Draco sighed as he closed his tired eyes and tried to get comfortable, his pillow smelled like vanilla. Which he did not mind but it was another form of being teased, blasted imagination. He heard Hermione moving about in the living room and he assumed that she was preparing to leave.

He heard her enter the bedroom but figured that she had left one belonging or another of hers in there and did not feel the need to open his eyes or question her about it.

Imagine his surprise when he felt her crawl into bed and hesitantly wrap an arm around his midriff. His eyes popped open in shock as his body stiffened. This was wholly unexpected behavior from her, never in a million years would have had gathered she would be so bold.

Sensing his discomfort she glanced shyly up into his almost frightened looking eyes. "Is this okay?" Her voice was barely above a whisper and her pretty brown eyes reflected the vulnerability she was feeling.

Draco blinked at her a couple times as if seeing her for the first time before his lips curved up into a rather attractive smirk. "I think so." He replied before relaxing. The smile that lit her face was one he would remember long after she had gone. Being a cynic he figured that she would wake up one day and be rightfully repulsed by him, but until that day came he might as well enjoy her company.

And so the two almost friends fell asleep wrapped up in each other's arms, thinking that drinking was not such a bad idea after all.

* * *

"Here's to alcohol: the cause of, and solution to, all of life's problems."—Homer Simpson


	6. A Picture in Time

A/N: Hi Guys, sorry I dissapeared off the face of the earth, I lost my muse and I would rather wait than write uninspired chapters.

Anyway, here is the LAST chapter, read and weep my darlings. And enjoy of course.

* * *

Had there been anyone on the outside of the house who contrived to peer through the exterior window for a small peep inside they would have been met by figures so still they appeared to be more akin to a picture in time rather than almost friends caught in tumultuous emotions.

"I have to leave."

The words were spoken softly, and she wouldn't meet his blank grey eyes. They were both standing in his small living room, two pairs of feet glued to the floor, he on his way from the kitchen to hand her a cup of coffee, and she having just rushed through the door only to stop abruptly after her quiet exclamation.

The distance between them was less than a half a meter, but it would appear that it did not take physical space to feel distance. The grey eyed man simply handed the coffee to his uncomfortable counterpart before leisurely walking to his couch and taking a seat.

Confused brown eyes peered into the liquid it shared a color with. The warmth was a small comfort to the cold dread that had filled her petite form at her companions continued silence.

"The ministry?" A monotone inquiry was elicited after a careful sip of his slowly cooling beverage, bittersweet and perfect.

"Yes, I just had an impromptu meeting with the head of the muggle immersion committee in my office. He was not very approving." She said while ungluing her feet and moving to sit on the couch, stealing what little closeness she could while she could.

"The damage?" He swirled the coffee in his cup, eyeing it speculatively. If he was the least bit upset the most trained eye would be none the wiser. But Hermione knew better than most that an outward manifestation of emotion was not necessary to feel on the inside.

"Immediate removal from my position as both your 'parole officer' and professor, it was highly suggested that I spend some time outside of England, for my health of course. I have already informed the university that an emergency has come up, I will be using my vacation and sick time while I find another position elsewhere." There was a strained undertone to her answer that gave way to the suspicion that she had been more than forcefully informed of the changes.

Narrowed eyes cut sharply to the sad face of the pretty brunette seated calmly next to his person. "I was not aware they had jurisdiction to dictate your place of work."

Brown flickered to grey before dropping once more to its liquid colored equivalent. "They don't. But they have more than enough jurisdictions to dictate your place of residency."

Draco swallowed the sudden anger that bubbled up his throat before it could escape out his mouth. His companion for the better part of a year clearly thought herself at fault. Though partially true, he felt the blame lay more with a green eyed savior of the wizarding world. The ministry had seemed quite apathetic towards their progress before a certain former Gryffindor had manufactured to get Hermione and subsequently himself to Weasley's wedding. He was convinced that whatever alarm the ministry felt upon learning of their relationship beyond that of the muggle immersion program was only magnified by the messenger. He was actually a bit surprised that they had managed to steal as much pleasurable time as they had; though he was not sure if the delay was with the messenger or the ministry.

They had spent a blissful week discovering the more physical side of their odd relationship after waking up for the second time in one day in his soft bed. Up until now he had thought that perhaps drinking with her had been the best thing to happen in a long while.

There had been very little awkwardness, no dramatic assumptions of overt commitment, like everything else they did it just seemed natural for her to curl up against him while they read their respective books, or for him to play with her hair while she took her daily nap, the well-used couch pillow replaced by his lap.

They did not have sex, they did not even kiss, but somehow the small touches of familiarity felt infinitely more intimate and satisfying. A mutual physical appreciation to compliment the mutual mental appreciation they held for each other. They were in every sense of the phrase 'almost lovers', and oddly 'almost' was more than enough.

But now, 'almost' seemed as though it was entirely too much. Each would have gladly retained their non-physical relationship in place of this, to get to touch for such a short amount of time only was not the gentlest reality check.

"And everything is decided for us." He said resignedly. She nodded once in response.

"I am surprised they didn't simply arrest me under allegations which would be just a stone's throw away from true." Was his dry comment, a self-deprecating smirk fitting his lips.

A delicate snort was heard from his curly hair couch partner as she shot her coffee a dark look. "Not for a lack of trying. This situation was my idea. Up until now we have done nothing wrong but perhaps spend more time together than strictly necessary or socially proper." He nodded his head absently in agreement. Surely it was against school policy, ministry policy, and general common sense to think it okay and unbiased for them to continue on in this way. Professors with students were always frowned upon, and parole officers with their parolee stank of corruption.

For the first time since she walked through the door their eyes met for than a brief second, whatever she saw in his eyes and on his face caused a smirk to fit her lips and a mischievous light to enter her eyes. "I guess we should thank them for interfering before we did do something wrong." She said teasingly.

His brow furrowed as he shot her a questioning look, more confused by her change of mood than her implication.

"Come now, you must know that with as devilishly handsome as you are I would've jumped you sooner rather than later. There's not enough restraint in the world to have kept it from happening." Her tone was playful but he saw the honesty in her eyes. It was the first time that one of them had spoken of the mutual attraction aloud-too bad for the situation that prompted it.

A soft smile touched his lips as he looked at the woman who had redefined his world so quietly yet thoroughly. "Fair enough, love. When do you leave?"

The smirk dropped into a small frown as she gave him apologetic look.

"That soon, eh? Your idea no doubt." He said without accusation. He received a shrug in response.

"If I didn't leave now, I'm not sure I could ever be persuaded too. And I must admit it would be dreadful to have to follow you into Azkaban because I did not have the fortitude to leave when it was pertinent. I hope you understand." She finished softly, giving him a regret filled smile.

"But of course." He said while placing his coffee cup on the table and rising from the couch. He stood and looked down on his companion still seated on the couch as she gave him a pitiful look.

Gracefully he bent slightly and took the cold coffee from her small hands before setting it next to his on the table. That accomplished he filled her empty hands with his as he pulled her to her feet.

Fingers laced he pulled her the short distance to his door. There they paused to drink up the others appearance a moment before the inevitable parted them.

"I am going to miss you terribly." She said bluntly while staring into grey eyes swirling with emotion. He closed his eyes as he pulled her into a hug, making sure to wrap his arms tightly around her small frame. She too closed her eyes as she buried her head into his chest and clung desperately to his waist; both trying to memorize the feel and smell of the person that was sure to haunt their thoughts and dreams for quite some time to come.

After a few moments he kissed the top of her head before reluctantly pulling back to look into her tear filled eyes, though he knew she was too stubborn to let them fall. "Chin up love, we've been through worse." He said while lightly brushing his hand against the side of her face. "What's another four years of loneliness compared to the previous seven?" He asked in hopes of cheering her a bit.

"Four years too much, I'm afraid. You'll come find me after you've graduated and been cleared, right? If only for a cup of coffee and a conversation with an old friend?" She asked timidly, no doubt in her mind that he would be fine without her.

They were both painfully aware that a lot could happen in four years, feelings could fade, feelings could grow, and the best of friendships could cool. What chance did their almost relationship stand?

"If only for coffee." He reassured her. She nodded a bit shakily before standing on her tip toes and pressing her lips lightly against his soft cheek.

And just like that she turned and walked out of his life, shutting the door softly behind her. Neither said goodbye. Overwhelmed grey eyes scanned an empty loft, her coffee cup being the only confirmation that she had ever been there.

Not knowing what else to do he walked to his bedroom with low spirits where he too shut the door, closing himself off from the living room, leaving only their coffee cups to keep each other company while their owners re-centered themselves and steeled their nerves towards the next four years of a life without the others company.

* * *

Soooo, That's the end of My Almost. What do you think? It leaves plenty of room for a sequel, though I'm not sure if there is enough popular demand to justify one. Feedback is always welcome.


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